James Dowson (born ) is a far-right political activist from Airdrie, North Lanarkshire, Scotland. He has been active across the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States and has been described by The Times as "the invisible man of Britain's far right".
After joining and falling out with the Orange Order, Dowson was active as an anti-abortion militant. He joined the far-right British National Party and was in charge of the party's financial affairs. He later helped found and worked as the main source of funding for Britain First from which he resigned in 2014. He was arrested for his participation in the Belfast City Hall flag protests in late-2012 and was also involved in the Protestant Coalition, a party formed by some involved in the protests. Subsequently, he has also been active in the anti-immigrant Knights Templar International and supporting Donald Trump's 2016 election campaign.
Dowson presents Templar Report on Purged TV every Sunday to Friday which has Nick Griffin, the former BNP and National Front leader, as a regular guest.
Activities
Anti-abortion activism
Dowson was a Calvinist minister before entering politics. He was for a time a member of the Orange Order and was associated with a controversial flute band accused of glorifying loyalist murderer Michael Stone during parades. Dowson subsequently fell out with the Orange Order after he was forced to leave the movement, even taking part in protests against it where he denounced the group as being filled with "atheists and boozers".
He came to wider attention for his campaigning against abortion, establishing his own group, the UK Life League, in 1999 after meeting with the leaders of Youth Defence, a militant anti-abortion group active in the Republic of Ireland. He courted controversy by setting up a website that published the personal details of sexual health workers, as well as encouraging supporters to bombard Paul Goggins with messages after the Northern Irish Health Secretary had mooted the possibility of relaxing Northern Ireland's tough anti-abortion laws. When the Marie Stopes Clinic (a family planning clinic denounced by its critics as pro-abortion) opened in Belfast in 2012, Dowson took a leading role in the protests that followed. Dowson has also stated that he worked as part of the United States anti-abortion movement and used much of what he learned there as part of his career in public relations.
It has been reported that during his campaigns Dowson has picked up several criminal convictions, notably for breach of the peace in 1986, possession of a weapon and breach of the peace in 1991, and criminal damage in 1992. Dowson has, however, denied all of these claims apart from the conviction for breach of the peace, which he insisted was for an incident in his youth.
Matt Collins, a former member of the National Front, who now monitors the far-right with anti-fascist group Hope Not Hate said of Jim Dowson in an interview with Channel 4 News in 2014:
British National Party
Dowson joined the British National Party at an unspecified date and became a leading figure within the group, rising to take charge of the BNP's financial affairs. He has claimed that in this role he raised £4 million for the party. Dowson's financial role with the party began in late 2007.
Having relocated to Ballygowan from Glasgow, Dowson set up a BNP call centre at the Carrowreagh Business Centre in Dundonald on the outskirts of Belfast. Dowson ran the centre under the name of Adlorr-ies.com Ltd, a Leicestershire-based company he had established.
Dowson announced his departure from the BNP in 2010 and stated that he intended to start an anti-Islamic Christian group. According to a report in the Daily Record, Dowson had also faced an allegation that he had groped a female BNP worker.
Britain First
Dowson's involvement in Britain First, a far-right party led by the former BNP councillor Paul Golding, first came to light in 2012 when the English Defence League repudiated any connections to the group on the basis that Dowson was involved and they considered him financially untrustworthy. In 2014, it was publicly revealed that Dowson was the main source of funding behind the group. According to a report on the Channel 4 news programme, Dowson was the "ideological guru" of the group. In fact, Dowson had been a founder of the group in 2010 but did not take a public role. According to the anti-fascist group Hope Not Hate he had been the driving force behind the group's foundation and had used it to attack the BNP leader Nick Griffin, with whom he had had a bitter falling-out.