After every election, someone will inevitably proclaim that “the people have spoken”. But what exactly the people say when they speak is far from clear. The legal and political boundaries of the democratic mandate have been called into question on a number of occasions in the past few years. Is there any way, in which the popular mandate can be measured and reconstructed without it setting unwarranted constraints to representative democracy? To what extent is the new government under a new PM bound by the mandate of the 2015 general election? What did the Leave vote in the EU referendum exactly mean? Is the mandate given in the EU referendum at odds with the mandate of the Scottish independence referendum? Are party manifestoes legally or politically binding? What might the role of courts be in maintaining the popular mandate? The event will examine these questions from various perspectives including political science, political philosophy, and law.

John Curtice (@whatukthinks) is Professor of politics at Strathclyde University and chief commentator at whatukthinks.org/eu.

Sionaidh Douglas-Scott holds the Anniversary Chair in Law and is Co-Director at the Centre for Law and Society in a Global Context at Queen Mary University of London.

Katrin Flikschuh is Professor of Political Theory at LSE Government.

Dominic Grieve MP was the Shadow Attorney General from 2003-09, Shadow Home Secretary from 2008-09, Shadow Justice Secretary from 2009-10 and has been MP for Beaconsfield since 1997. After the General Election of 2010 he was appointed a Privy Councillor and Attorney General holding that office until July 2014. Mr Grieve is currently a member of the Standards and Privileges Committee of the House of Commons. In September 2015, Mr Grieve was elected Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee.

Chair: Emmanuel Melissaris (@EMelissaris) is Associate Professor of Law at LSE Law.

Recorded on Tuesday 1 November 2016, 7 - 8.30pm at Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building