I’ll crack down on the small boat smugglers but I have not got time for Boris psychodrama, says Rishi Sunak

RISHI Sunak came out fighting over the Boris Johnson saga by declaring “I haven’t got time” for the psychodrama.

As he joined police on a dawn immigration bust, the Prime Minister shrugged off the civil war threatening to tear the Tories apart.

Instead, he said he wanted to get on with tackling the challenges his government was facing — in particular, pledging to crack the small boats crisis.

He said: “I am really on it, doing everything I can, straining every sinew, trying everything we haven’t tried before.”

He also pledged to crackdown on crime and on dodgy trans advice given in schools — while taking aim at Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, claiming he was in the pocket of eco-activists.

Asked how he felt at Mr Johnson’s resignation over claims he misled Parliament, he said simply: “I am just focused on delivering for people — that is what I am here to do.

“Everything else for me is not a priority.

“If we spend all this time talking about how we are going to tackle illegal migration and stop the boats — that is a big and complicated challenge that I am determined to grip and determined to make a difference to people on.

“I want to ease the burdens on the cost of living, I want to bring inflation down, I want to get the NHS waiting list down — that’s what I spend my time focusing on all day every day

“I haven’t got time quite frankly to focus on other things.”

His first interview since Mr Johnson stood down as an MP came as Trending In The News on Sunday joined him on the frontline in an early morning raid on suspected illegal immigrants in North West London on Thursday morning.

It was part of the biggest day of action against illegal workers England has ever undertaken.

It focused on rooting out foreigners who have overstayed their visas and were now illegally working for companies such as food delivery companies in the gig economy.

Arriving at the police station before 5am, the surprisingly perky PM was handed a cup of coffee and a stab-proof vest as he was briefed on the raid.

He joined officers driving in convoy across North West London to a home where the suspects lived.

Officers broke down the door and swarmed into the house.

Neighbours peeked through their net curtains and staggered out on to their doorsteps in their dressing gowns.

But, after clocking the PM in the middle of the action, they dashed back inside to get their phones to snatch a photo.

While no illegal immigrants was found at that address, across England, 300 officers raided 159 properties and made 105 arrests.

For Mr Sunak, the raid was inextricably linked to his promise to stop the small boats and get flights to Rwanda in the air.

Admitting net migration was too high at 606,000 a year, he pledged to get numbers down.

And on illegal immigration, he added: “We have got to grip this problem.

“The criminal gangs — part of their business model is attracting people here with the offer of black market work.

“That is wrong and we have got to clamp down on it.”

But as he was out with police, the Commons privileges committee published its long-awaited report into Mr Johnson’s breaches of Covid lockdown rules.

It seemingly killed off his political career by recommending he be suspended for 90 days and banned for life from getting an ex-MP’s pass for Parliament.

Mr Johnson had earlier quit as an MP, having been given a preview of the report.

While the ex-PM branded the committee’s findings “deranged” and insisted he was the victim of what he called a “protracted political assassination”, back at police HQ, Mr Sunak refused to get sucked into his party infighting.

Instead, he was eager to spread the message that he was throwing the kitchen sink at stopping the boats — one of his five key pledges.

A 500-bed migrant barge will arrive in Dorset within weeks and two more are on the way

Meanwhile, the first Rwanda deportation flight could take off as early as September.

And despite migrant numbers creeping up again as the weather improves, Mr Sunak insisted: “The plan is working.

“You can start to believe that that deterrent effect works.

“When people see that there is no point in them coming illegally because they will get sent back, they stop coming.

“We are not going to solve it overnight so we have to keep at it.

“I think it is a positive step that the numbers this year, so far, are down for the first time since the small boats problem emerged.”

And he railed against unelected peers and bishops — such as the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby — for trying to block his stop the boats legislation.

He said: “There is nothing right about criminal gangs cruelly exploiting the most vulnerable people.

“It is also not fair that some people are jumping the queue when others are playing by the rules.

“And it is also not fair on British taxpayers who are stumping up millions of pounds a day to house illegal asylum seekers in hotels.

“I don’t think it is fair, the current system.

“It is not justifiable or sustainable because people are dying.

“It means we cannot help the people we really want to help.”

Separately, the PM is also putting the final touches to new trans guidance for schools — insisting they must not allow children to swap their pronouns without telling parents.

He added: “The well-being and safety of children is my top priority and we have to recognise that any degree of social transition could have potentially quite a significant impact and consequences for a child.”

And in what could be seen as a warning shot to his squabbling party, he warned Britain could not afford to let Labour into power.

He said: “Under Keir Britain would descend into a nightmare world where the eco mob would be calling the shots.”