For a long time, the British Labour Party has been one of the most remarkable cases of the decline of mass socialist parties. Rather than providing an exclusively sociological interpretation of this decline, due only to social changes, the first part of this essay underscores the political and institutional factors involved in the crisis of the party (governmental incompetence, sectarian policies, dependence on unions, a lack of internal democracy etc., as well as a move away from the rules and

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... constraints of the «Westminster model»), In the second part, the essay focuses on the means whereby a process of political innovation was brought about as well as its dimensions. By making use of political communication, social sciences, restoring the role of leadership and the parliamentary opposition, Labour has once again become an electable and governmental party. Along with these unquestionably positive developments, such as that of rendering the role of Opposition competitive and credible, the process of innovation has brought out the fact that a hard core, resistant to change remains strong, due to the party's cumbersome and union-dependent organizational structure. The fourth consecutive defeat of Labour in April 1992 calls into question not only the future of European Left, after the upsets of '89, but also the future of the traditional model of British democracy, now that the periodic alternation in power no longer takes place.