David Cameron, the British prime minister who flew to Washington, D.C. on a commercial flight last week for a meeting with President Obama, offers more lessons for our politics than can be analyzed in one column.

Perhaps most pertinently, though, Cameron and the British system of government provide examples for our own university. Those examples should be considered by the SGA as the organization looks at revising its constitution.

Any new constitution or changes to the current constitution must be approved by a majority of the entire student body. So wouldn’t it be splendid if the SGA gave the student body the opportunity to approve something radical, something different, something out of the box?

What if students were given the opportunity to establish a student parliament, similar to the British parliament that Cameron leads?

A student parliament would likely be much larger than the current student senate, preferably twice as large with around 100 seats. This would be a very positive adjustment.

Since the year 2000, the University has grown by 9,500 students, a nearly 50 percent increase. The student senate, however, has not grown at all. Having a larger legislative body would make the SGA more representative of the student body and would more closely connect SGA officeholders to their constituents. More student senators, or, in this case, student members of parliament, would give the SGA more manpower, more ideas, and greater resources with which to serve the growing UA community.

Of course, under a parliamentary system, a larger legislature would be essential, because the executive and legislative branches of government would effectively be merged. The numerous elected and appointed people who now make up the SGA exec would most likely come from parliament, with unelected directors and assistants continuing to serve under those officials.

It would fall into the hands of the parliament to elect the Student Prime Minister or, in J.K. Rowling fashion, the Minister of Students. This means students would no longer be able to vote for the SGA president directly, as they do now.

However, students could vote for slates of candidates organized under one leader, with the understanding that the leader of the party that garners the most votes will become the prime minister. This may require the creation of political parties.

Given that political parties dominate all realms of politics in the country today, there should be nothing objectionable about allowing like-minded students to group together to form governing coalitions in a parliament.

If the University should decide not to allow parties and coalitions, then students could run for parliament just as they currently run for senate and select officers after they are inaugurated. While this would effectively give parliament an exclusive say in which of its members serve on exec, it would ultimately still be a more representative system.

If the legislative branch elects and appoints members of exec from within its own ranks, it has the power to hold those officers accountable. If someone is doing a bad job, they could be removed midyear. Hell, we could even have a vote of no confidence and throw the entire government out!

Currently, though, as soon as we elect an SGA president or vice president, we are pretty much stuck with them for the whole year, regardless of their performance.

Whether or not we establish political parties, some form of organized opposition must be allowed. Otherwise, there would be no “Prime Minister’s Questions,” the Westminster tradition that occurs every Wednesday the House of Commons is in session, when the prime minister takes questions from frequently hostile members of parliament.

Imagine the spectacle of such an event in the Ferguson Center Forum, which would hopefully be posted online for public viewing!

The United States Constitution is a great document, and the presidential system has served our nation well. I would never advocate replacing our institutions with a government more similar to those found in Western European countries. However, at the University level, it is time for something new.

Only by experimenting and attempting truly revolutionary changes can we set ourselves apart from competing institutions. Imagine if UA became the only university in the country with a student parliament! It would be a most unique characteristic, one that made our students more aware of other systems of government, more open-minded towards exploring new ideas, and hopefully, more engaged in the institutions that shape the UA community.

Tray Smith is the opinions editor of the Crimson White.