The London police want to be able to prosecute protestors who burn the British flag in a bid to fight perceptions among extremists that Britain is too soft, a senior police officer said on Saturday.
The Metropolitan Police has submitted the idea, as well as another to bar protestors from covering their faces, to Lord Peter Goldsmith, the attorney general, in a bid to crack down on those who seek to inflame ethnic and religious tensions, he said.
The proposals aim to give police greater powers to arrest extremists, Tarique Ghaffur, assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and the country's most senior officer, told BBC radio.
"There appears to be a growing public perception that policing of demonstrations is unduly lenient," said Ghaffur.
"The reason this is a great country is the tolerance of people. If they start to see images of people who seem to be 'getting away with it', that starts to erode," he said.
Ghaffur told BBC radio that the proposals would be backed by the Muslim community because they clearly targeted the extremist minority.
He stressed that his proposal to prevent faces being covered during demonstrations was aimed at extremists who were hiding from the police rather than at women who wear the full-face veil, a right that is not being contested.
Britain has been gripped in an angry debate over the right for women to wear the veil since cabinet minister Jack Straw said earlier this month that he asked women to remove theirs when they visit his constituency office.
Straw said veils promote a separation of cultures in Britain and also represents a barrier to communication even though he said women should not be denied the right to wear them.
Ghaffur's intervention comes as Britain's domestic Press Association news agency said that Lord Goldsmith is understood to be preparing announcements on dealing with extremists, possibly in November.