Weaponising Credibility: Lawfare, Bureaucratic Violence, and Bangladeshi Asylum Seekers in the UK

Abstract

This paper is an ethnographic account of Bangladeshi political exiles seeking asylum in
the UK. It suggests that the legal principle of ‘credibility’ functions as a punitive
bureaucratic tool within a wider nexus of ‘legal extortion’ – involving nefarious travel
agents, rogue lawyers, and hostile state institutions – which applicants are compelled
to navigate. Based on a sample of 150 asylum case files and long-term multi-sited
fieldwork with asylum seekers, lawyers, travel agents, activists, and community support
groups, the paper argues that the politicisation of UK immigration law is an act of
‘lawfare’ (cf. ComaroJ & ComaroJ 2009), intended to enhance electoral interests over
access to justice.