This footage was filmed and produced 23 October 2023.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said police enforce the law and not taste and decency.

Speaking to journalists after a “constructive” meeting with the Home Secretary, he suggested that laws around extremism and hate crime should be redrawn.

There was an apparent clash between the Home Secretary and the Met after officers and legal experts found no crime had been committed by protesters chanting “jihad” during demonstrations in London at the weekend.

Sir Mark said: “We are absolutely ruthless in tackling anybody who puts their foot over the legal line. We’re accountable for the law. We can’t enforce taste or decency, but we can enforce the law.”

He added: “The conversation finished really around the line of the law. It’s our job to enforce to that line. It’s Parliament’s job to draw that line. And the thought that maybe events at the moment … maybe some of the lines aren’t quite in the right place.”

Sir Mark went on: “The law that we’ve designed around hate crime and terrorism over recent decades hasn’t taken full account of the ability in extremist groups to steer around those laws and propagating the truly toxic messages through social media.

“Those lines probably need re-drawing.”