Is this the end of Oxford as we know it? Whisked from the Bourgeois’ pointy head hat flies, Throughout the heavens, reverberating screams.

The beginning of Jakob van Hoddis’ poem Weltende (World’s End) captures the feeling of panic that is striking the more conservative half of Oxford’s student body.

Student liberals, radicals and lefties are accused of conspiring together to change a sacred tradition: they want to ban sub-fusc. Gone the gowns and mortarboards that make up the compulsory uniform.They want to throw to the wind hundreds of years of tradition, the traditionalists howl, they want to bin what makes our university great.

And yet it could happen. In the year 2006 Oxford’s student body voted overwhelmingly in favour of keeping sub-fusc, 81 per cent voting in favour according to student newspaper Cherwell.

Those in favour of looking silly in public must have thought they were safe. But reminiscent of the SNP’s post-referendum success, the anti-sub-fusc (two dashes worth of revolution in that word) are alight with popularity.

At the OUSU, council passed the motion in favour of a referendum by 58-10 (with the obligatory single individual abstaining). This does not mean, however, that the referendum itself will pass.

The chances are that the motion will probably fail again. But what if it didn’t? Oxford would be emptied of gowns and mortarboards, at least during exam time. Would it still be Oxford without students wearing compulsory uniforms? Would it be our Oxford?

It’s too much for some: right-minded students have joined together to a pro sub-fusc facebook group: “Save sub-fusc”. Its charm offensive seems irresistible. They have propagated a propaganda photo of a teddy bear in sub-fusc.

Who knows what dirty tricks they might resort to next?

Celebrity endorsements? Animals parading around Oxford in sub-fusc? Weeping Cambridge students announcing the misery of never having had sub-fusc? What is certain is that the referendum will lead to more division in the student body than any actual political election.

If my experience at Wadham is anything to go by, things are going to massively heat up. Boycotting Israel, divestment, tuition fees: nothing has been as controversial as the decision to introduce a meat-free Mondays policy.

And what could happen if the referendum succeeded It almost seems worth abolishing it to see what course the “save sub-fusc” campaign would take. Would they go into exams wearing the sub-fusc anyway?

If they did so they would become the easiest targets for Oxbridge ridicule since the black armband-wearing students at Madgalene College Cambridge that protested against the entry of women.

A vote against sub-fusc is a vote against tweeness, against Lewis and Morse, against tweed, against Brideshead, but perhaps, and also more sadly, also a vote against silliness.