Corpus Christi College has delayed its referendum on whether to remain disaffiliated from the Students’ Union, after an email sent by SU sabbatical officers shortly before the vote was set to happen was deemed an inappropriate intervention by JCR officials.

The email was sent to Corpus students last Friday (18/11) by Zaynab Ahmed and Neve Atkinson, the SU’s undergraduate president and access officer respectively, the day before the referendum was due to take place.

An email sent to students by the JCR president and vice-president shortly afterwards announced the postponement. They said that the SU’s email constituted: “an unprecedented and unacceptable interference in the internal democratic processes of Corpus JCR."

“We are very disappointed that we have had to take these steps”, they added.

The SU’s email implored students to vote to re-engage with the organisation. It detailed what it considered to be the SU’s positive work, and stated that continuing to boycott Student Council meetings — the main consequence of voting to disengage — would mean that the views of Corpus students would be unrepresented in the SU.

They wrote: “Whether you agree or disagree with the SU’s work, the Sabbatical Officers will continue with it without your JCR being represented on these issues".

However, the email subsequently circulated by the JCR noted that an established JCR rule means that only the returning officer (Corpus’s JCR President) is permitted to send mass emails related to elections/referenda. The SU had not sought permission to send any such communication, and the JCR email said that it would have been denied in any case.

Representatives of the ‘boycott’ side, the email added, have been invited to send one email to all Corpus JCR members, “in order to restore fairness between the two sides”. The JCR presidential election, scheduled for the same day, went ahead unaffected.

While boycotting means that the College’s JCR officers choose not to SU meetings, Corpus students remain at liberty to engage with the SU and its activities on an individual level.

Corpus has boycotted the Cambridge SU since the organisation’s establishment in 2020. The College had also been disaffiliated from the SU’s predecessor organisation, the Cambridge University Students’ Union, since 2010, with College members voting annually on whether to continue this practice.

The College held its annual debate on the question of engagement on the 9th November. The ‘engage’ side was represented by SU undergraduate president Zaynab Ahmed, while second year undergraduates Jacob Hougie and Malachi Gee spoke in favour of boycotting the SU.

The ‘boycott’ speakers argued that the SU’s ability to provide support is lacking, that it is unrepresentative, given its low electoral turnout, and that more work is done by JCRs to address students’ “real concerns".

Hougie told this paper: “The SU’s actions during this referendum campaign are without precedent from any of the campaigns since Corpus began its boycott more than a decade ago.

“In breaking the rules of the campaign and sending the email quite so soon before the referendum, the SU showed a disregard for the clearly established policies.

“The SU should reflect on how this was allowed to happen, meanwhile Corpus can thank the swift response of the returning officer for protecting the integrity of the referendum.”

Ahmed, on the other hand, argued that engagement would lead to Corpus students’ views being better represented. She also claimed that the SU does valuable work on behalf of students.

Ahmed and Atkinson told Varsity that they were unaware of the Corpus JCR rule prohibiting group emails by anyone other than the JCR president during elections.

They added that they had now found the rule, and that although it only applies to Corpus members running for office, “in the spirit of democracy and out of respect to the JCR Officers, we would not have sent out this email had the rule been communicated to us”.

They also rejected the claim that the email was “unacceptable”, saying: “We had no intentions to intervene in the democratic processes of the JCR".

The referendum will now take place this Saturday (26/11).