PEXIT: Referendum to take place next week

CUSU faces another round of attempted college disaffiliation.

There’s a certain oomph that comes with the Noun/Number combination. The Gang of Four; The Cambridge Five; The Magnificent Seven. To this list of notables, we can now add the Peterhouse Seventeen – Crusaders against CUSU, Decurions of Disaffiliation, Inquisitors of… bugger, I’ve run out of alliteration.

Hot on the heels of yesterday’s article about the referendum to (sort of) abolish Class Lists, another referendum has bounced onto our radars, like a great beach-ball of Direct Democracy. Mercifully, this exercise in gross oversimplification will only be limited to Peterhouse, as the college votes on disaffiliating from the largest condom supplier in East-Anglia.

In the pink bit (and at least some of the red bit), CUSU’s johnnies are king.

The Referendum, to be held on the 28th and 29th of October, was prompted by a letter sent to the Peterhouse JCR, otherwise known as The Sexcentenary (or sex) Club, back in Easter Term.

Arguing that CUSU had “let down Jewish students,” by failing to respond appropriately to the election of Malia Bouattia to the NUS Presidency, the authors of the Letter (“The Peterhouse Seventeen”) presented the Sex Club with a clear choice- remain with CUSU and maintain the status quo, or disaffiliate.

The cause of all the bother.

Much like the Cambridge Five when they were all starting to defect, the identities of the Seventeen are uncertain. However, with a debate scheduled for the 26th of October, it’s likely that at least some of the Seventeen will come out into the open.

He came into the open- will the Peterhouse Seventeen do the same?

So the disaffiliation movement rumbles on. Peterhouse have made a break for freedom, it remains to be seen whether other colleges that pushed for referendum last term, namely Queens’, choose to follow in the same direction.

And on that note, the fun and games continue.