Friedrich Merz, the leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and soon to be chancellor of Germany, announced he was going ‘all in’ last month when he presented the Bundestag with his plan to turn asylum seekers away at the border. This meant openly courting support from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), whose votes proved decisive. It was already clear that migration – not Ukraine, the climate or the recessionary economy – would be the dominant theme of the federal election on 23 February. But after a deadly knife attack by a rejected Afghan asylum seeker in Aschaffenburg on 22 January, Merz upped the ante. It was a characteristically impulsive and provocative move, without a clear purpose other than to prove his mettle by violating the taboo on co-operating with the far right.