Leaves the lecturers following a veto (8)
I believe the answer is:
abandons
'leaves' is the definition.
(abandoning is a kind of leaving)
'lecturers following a veto' is the wordplay.
'lecturers' becomes 'dons' (don can mean a university academic).
'following' says to put letters next to each other.
'veto' becomes 'ban' (banning is a kind of vetoing).
'a'+'ban'='aban'
'dons' put after 'aban' is 'ABANDONS'.
'the' is the link.
(Other definitions for abandons that I've seen before include "Deserts, forsakes" , "Deserts, never intending to return" , "Deserts, say a sinking ship" , "Deserts, leaves alone" , "Deserts, gives up completely" .)