Tony Blair has warned that cutting ties with Europe would be an act of "self-mutilation".

The prime minister claimed the argument against a European superstate "is being won".

"As Europe co-operates more, indeed as the whole world moves closer together, there is all the more need to root the European vision in the identity of the nations that make up Europe," he said.

Taking on the "absurd" claims of British Eurosceptics, Blair said Britain could not influence Europe by "standing on the touchline".

"Cutting ties with Europe is to engage in self-mutilation," said the prime minister.

"The purpose of the European Union is to give us, the individual nations that form it, greater economic and political strength."

Addressing his Conservative opponents at home, he told an audience in Poland that "anti-Europeanism is not British patriotism".

"Our strategy should be: get in it, make the most of it, have the confidence to win the debate not be frightened by it. Do we believe that the Europe our people want is a Europe of nations not a federal superstate? Yes," he said.

"Do we believe Europe must reform economically to succeed? Yes. Do we believe Europe and the USA should be allies? Yes.

"Are our arguments good ones? Yes. Can we win the debate? It's up to us.

"But great nations don't hide away or follow along, stragglers at the back. They lead. They win. They have the confidence that comes not from arrogance but from a true understanding of the modern world."

And he challenged the notion that Europe "is something done to us... that everyone else spends their time ganging up on us".

Such a stance was, said the prime minister, based on "a belief fit for a nation with an inferiority complex not a proud nation that knows it can win and has proven its courage and its confidence by its record in history".