Keir Starmer has urged the Labour party to stop “squabbling over its own past,” saying “harmful and alienating” ideological contestation has made the party feel like “separate families living under one roof.” In an essay published ahead of Labour’s annual party conference in Brighton, Starmer called for unity and urged party factions to stop focusing on ideological differences, especially over the legacy of Tony Blair’s New Labour government. Blair’s centrist domestic policies and his pro-American foreign policy have been fiercely opposed by Labour’s left wing, including former leader Jeremy Corbyn and his followers. “In recent decades, the legacy of the 1997 Labour government has become contested to the extent that the party has at times felt like separate families living under one roof. This has been harmful and alienating,” Starmer wrote. He said Labour had “become a party squabbling over its own past, rather than one focused on the future …