The ex-BNP ‘Christian patriot’ raising international funding for Scottish ‘vigilante’ night patrols

The frontman of a right wing, nationalist Christian group is raising funds from across the UK, Europe and the United States to buy equipment for Scottish "night patrols" accused of targeting migrants.

Britain First co-founder Jim Dowson, who is originally from Airdrie but now based in Northern Ireland, fronts Knights Templar International (KTI), a militant Christian nationalist organisation, which promotes itself by evoking the 10th century crusades. He was dubbed  “the invisible man of Britain's far right” by the BBC, who ran an investigation into his activities in 2018. 

Dowson posted videos revealing his financial support for the Glasgow groups to followers of KTI’s TikTok account this weekend, prior to the start of what organisers Unite the Clans claimed was Scotland’s “largest anti-migrant rally” in Glasgow.

Organisations KTI is funding include “night patrol” group Scots Active, providing them with stab vests, cameras and high visibility security jackets. The Ferret, which is co-publishing this story with the Detail, previously reported on this and other groups, who have been accused of having links to the far right and targeting migrants.

KTI claims to have members in the UK, Eastern Europe, Canada and the United States, whom Dowson thanked for “their generosity” in financial support for the Scottish volunteer groups. Dowson stood down from Britain First in 2014, claiming he opposed its “raids” on Mosques.

A fervent Ulster loyalist, he has also been using the phrase “unite the clans” in recent months, inferring that Protestant and Catholic groups should come together to fight the common “enemy” of migration from Muslim and other “third world countries”. In online sermons he expresses the view that getting rid of “illegals” is “not enough”. Nick Griffin, former leader of the British National Party, is also involved in the organisation and appears in several of their videos. 

Glasgow rally

On Saturday, 25 July, about four or five hundred anti-migration protests gathered in Glasgow Green to hear from speakers including Josh Fernie of the Homeland Party and Richard McFarlane of Patriotic Alternative who both called for re-migration of all people of colour and led chants of “send them back”. Later some protestors were filmed abusing people of colour passing by, both verbally and in one instance, throwing a traffic cone at a fast food delivery man. 

Police Scotland made 15 arrests over “significant disorder" and warned it expected to make others.

Several people at the Glasgow Green event were spotted wearing Dowson’s Knights Templar insignia including one draped in a cape bearing its logo. His organisation is named after The Knights Templar, which was a military order of the Catholic faith founded in 1118 to defend pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem. Various groups using similar names continue to evoke their historic iconography.

Some “night patrols” including Glasgow based Scots Active and a group called Scottish Crusade, supported the rally. As The Ferret has previously reported, these groups claim to be peaceful activists who are looking to protect women and children.

Critics argue some have anti-immigration agendas, are using the issue to fuel far right narratives and have targeted innocent people. The patrol groups have been highly visible at protests in local communities across Scotland in recent weeks, some in response to the presence of convicted or suspected child abusers.

In 2025-26 violence against women and girls has risen significantly in Scotland, including in Glasgow. Local protests have taken place after several serious assaults, including those by migrant men.

Ahead of Saturday’s event, several thousand counter protesters, organised by Stand Up to Racism, Women Against the Far Right and others, gathered at the gates of Glasgow Green to show vocal opposition to fascist and racist ideologies.

But beforehand, Dowson filmed himself on the green in TikTok videos that appear to be targeted at US supporters. In one video, filmed beside the doulton fountain, he says he is in Glasgow “because there are four different groups here that we’re going to try and help”.

The groups, he says, are involved in Christian patrols and “keeping the people safe” and he references meeting up with them later in the day. In the video he claims that authorities are “filling the houses” in Calton, the area to the east of the city on the edge of Glasgow Green, “with Africans” and “undocumented males from all over the world”.

He claims the green was “teeming with Africans” on the night before the march. He thanks Templar groups for their financial support, and asks them to “keep it coming” so that people in Glasgow can “keep their women and children safe”.

He signed off with the phrase “deus vult”, a Latin phrase which means “God wills it” and has become associated with far right, white supremacist movements, especially in the United States where it was seen during the 2017 Unite the Right protest in the Charlottesville along with crusader crosses. This rally became infamous after counter-protester Heather Heyer was murdered by a white supremacist.

In a second video Dowson encourages supporters to visit the Templeton carpet factory building on the green “if you ever get the chance to come to Glasgow” claiming he is “now off to meet some of the patrol groups”. In a different video he refers to Glasgow's poorer areas as “the projects”, using language to appeal to a US audience.

'Community safety'

Another online clip features Scots Active, who have thanked him for donations including walkie talkies,  stab vests and cameras. In the video Dowson claims that Scots Active are keeping women and girls safe because neither the authorities or the police are doing so. 

Police Scotland has previously told The Ferret that it does “not endorse, condone or encourage any group's activity”.

Darren Docherty, who co-founded Scots Active, confirmed Dowson got in touch over social media and said he had long been a fan of the Knights Templar. He claimed that while he agrees with Dowson about illegal migrants, he does not agree with everything he stands for. “I am a Rangers fan but I don’t agree with everything my football club does,” he argued. “So just because I am a fan of the people in question doesn’t mean I agree with everything they say.” 

He condemned the violence following the protest claiming “everyone should be able to state their point of view without being  attacked” and said no-one should be ever be attacked “over their skin colour”.

But he added: “Put it this way and it makes things simple - if you go to Poland you want to see Polish people, yes? Same goes for Japan or Jamaica so why when we want the same for Scotland are we branded racist?

“All we want is our native people to be around in our native land without foreign threats coming here and committing horrendous acts on our women and children who walk around with targets on their backs. If that makes me racist for wanting my native people to have a homeland then I must be racist.”

Dowson confirmed to The Ferret that, as he expresses in online sermons, he is not content with the remigration only of "illegals" but with all new migrants “flooding to Scotland”.

The BBC has previously exposed KTI for buying paramilitary equipment, sent to Northern Kosovo where British troops were stationed to keep the peace between the Muslim Kosovo Albanian community and Orthodox Christian Serbians. In 2017, Dowson was expelled from Hungary due to concern about his activities. He told The Ferret he was used by its government as a right wing fall guy to detract from criticism.

"Templars in history are seen as elite, chivalrous knights and we were brought up with these stories. You are not a skinhead thug anymore, you are a knight, protecting women." - Rory MacLellan, researcher

Rory MacLellan, post doctoral researcher at Royal Holloway, University of London, who has been researching the organisation since 2016, said Dowson’s group was the most recent to tap into Templar mythology to market its ideology. 

In KTI's merchandise store website it advertises “the full knight package” for $890, which includes various knight associated regalia.

“Templars in history are seen as elite, chivalrous knights and we were brought up with these stories,” MacLellan said. “So this is about a rebranding of the old right. You are not a skinhead thug anymore, you are a knight, protecting women.”

He claimed that while KTI claimed to have money, images of a chapel renovation project appeared "shoddy" while some videos had AI backgrounds. “So you have to question how successful it is,” he added. “Regardless, this is a group using militant, supremacist and racist language. It is a far right group by any measure and the fact that they are funding Scottish community groups is concerning.”

A spokesperson from Women Against the Far-Right Scotland said the patrols emerging around the country "do nothing to keep women safe”. “Those involved are weaponising the very serious issue of violence against women and girls to spread their racist ideology and are a method to intimidate migrants, Muslims and people of colour,” they added.

“But they do not care about women; in recent reports many of the men involved in far-right organising have previously been reported for domestic abuse.”

Jim Dowson, who spoke to The Ferret yesterday from Northern Ireland, claimed that his visit to Glasgow last weekend was his first to the city for 20 years. “I didn’t recognise it,” he said, claiming that the number of foreigners on the streets was “unbelievable”. 

Glasgow is Scotland’s most ethnically diverse city, with 19 per cent of its population from a non-White minority ethnic group, according to the most recent figures. Only four per cent of Scotland is non-White.

“There are far too many people in Glasgow who come from other cultures that are incompatible with ours,” Dowson claimed. “They are unvetted and they are dangerous.”

Migrants were being housed in working class areas, he said, with “balloons” from the suburbs unable to understand the impact on communities. But his issue is not only with "illegal migrants" but with all migrants “who are flooding over here” including those who do so legally.

He clarified that he had “no problem” with migrants with specialist skills where there were shortages including doctors and engineers. “I don’t object to a wee Filipino nurse,” he said.

“I object to useless migrants, whether or not they are legal. It’s not just Muslims - people are coming here from third world countries and many of them have very different views on how we treat women."

Asked about his views on white abusers he said: “I’m biblical and the bible is very clear, if you are an abuser you should be executed regardless of where you come from – you should be put to death.”