Nigel Farage says his party plans to make immigration a “big issue” at next year’s Holyrood election.
Now technically, given this a policy area reserved to Westminster, none of the MSPs elected next May will actually be able to legislate on immigration.
But given the debate among the public and politicians at the moment, it still seems likely to feature fairly prominently – particularly if Reform UK is involved.
It kind of suits both sides at the moment, in that Swinney is very keen to go up against Farage at the ballot box, and pitch his SNP as being the anti-Reform vote in a bid to squeeze Labour out of the conversation.
Meanwhile, Farage is quite comfortable straying onto what most would consider controversial territory, if it gets a rise out his opponents and gets his party into the headlines.
In truth he won’t much mind being attacked by the first minister if it draws attention to the issues he wants to talk about, and lets him burnish his anti-establishment credentials.