King’s will now definitely keep the Soviet flag hanging in the bar, following a challenge to the previous decision and an online referendum held on Thursday. 

Eight votes after Lisa Karlin, a second-year Linguist, first proposed and won a KCSU motion to replace the flag last December, King’s undergraduates and graduates eventually overturned the decision, and the Communist symbol will now stay.

On Thursday a referendum delivered a majority decision of twenty-six, out of a turnout of 299. Three per cent abstained, 44 per cent voted to remove the flag, and 53 per cent chose to keep it. Commenting on the outcome, Lisa said she was “surprised and upset. I naively thought we would get it down.”

Lisa’s family lived and suffered in Ukraine during Soviet rule: “Many people, myself included, have family histories that involve the USSR in some way, and in the majority of cases the associations are not good ones. For these people, the flag conjures memories of unforgivable and undeniably personal acts of violence and oppression.”

Laurence Rowley-Abel, a second-year who spoke against removing the flag, declared: “The last two votes are indicative of the fact that we as a college feel that the flag is a symbol that can be interpreted in many different ways, but is nonetheless important for the political dynamic of the college and is most certainly not a naive support of the Soviet Union. But perhaps we should stop arguing about political symbols and actually do something political.” 

There have been some complaints of “too much democracy”. At the December motion last year, undergraduates first voted to allow graduates to vote, then voted to remove the flag. On 25th January this year, undergraduates again voted to allow graduate voting to overturn December’s decision, and students then voted on which flag would replace it. An unofficial online petition to scrap the flag was subsequently set up, and anti-flag voices vied for an online referendum. Thursday’s college open meeting again saw undergraduates voting to allow graduate voting, then the college voted to vote in a referendum, agreeing to vote speculatively for another flag if the hammer and sickle were to be taken down. Excluding ammendments, this brings the total number of votes on the issue to eight. 

One King’s member is relieved that the flag affair has ended: “It’s good because I can get the bar back in the evenings now. The college can now be free from constant flag speculation.” 

The flag debate is a recurring feature at King’s; 2010 saw similar proceedings, though with a clearer majority in favour of keeping the flag.