RISHI Sunak will demand British boots on French beaches when he meets Macron for the first time today – as the PM vows to Sun readers he will “get a grip” on the Channel crossings crisis.
The PM promised it was "a key priority for me" to sort out the UK's spiralling migration woes, and he's spending huge amounts of time working through options to crack down on the growing numbers.
It comes as the number of dangerous journeys made this year alone approaches a staggering 40,000.
He promised to take radical action to "return people who shouldn't be here in the first place" while hailing Britain's reputation to help those in genuine desperate need.
He defended keeping Suella Braverman as Home Secretary – saying she is "completely focused" on solving the problem and should be allowed to get on with the job.
And he insisted it was still his aim to reduce net migration as that's what Britain voted Brexit for.
He told The Sun last night: "It's very important to me, I want to make sure that we absolutely tackle this problem.
"Prime ministers can only spend their personal time on a handful of really key priorities, this for me is absolutely one of those.
"I have spent more time working on that in the last few days than anything else other than the Autumn Statement.
"I want Sun readers to have my commitment and assurance I take this extremely seriously – as does Suella.
"We need to get a grip on this." Mr Sunak revealed he's already raised the tricky issue of small boats with President Macron – and will meet him again today with their first face-to-face chat.
The Sun revealed last week that the UK and France were on the cusp of an agreement to let Border Force officials on French beaches – but it was pulled at the last minute.
The new PM said he would continue to push for an agreement, saying: "We are already cooperating a lot with France, we want to make sure that is productive for both of us, those are the conversations I will have with the President, I want to continue talks."
Every Brit should "feel good about providing sanctuary to those who really need it", he added.
But it's "got to be done legally and fairly," he stressed.
The PM insisted: "We can’t have people coming here who are breaking the rules, exploiting that compassion that undermines trust in the system and contains a lot of pressure, which is hard for us to deal with. We have to get a grip, do a range of things to stop it from happening, return people who shouldn’t be here in the first place."
It comes as a successful new pilot to speed up asylum claims will now be rolled out nationwide.
Claims will be digitalised and streamlined, with the number of staff hiked by another 50 per cent in a bid to steamroll through them even quicker.
100,000 people are still waiting for their claims to be rubber stamped or rejected, with hotel bills for them costing a staggering £6.8million a day.
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