Through
the keyhole
Yesterday we started a serialisation from the current issue of Searchlight Magazine which features a special investigation into the heart of the BNP. We highlight the organisational set-up, the secret locations and the people running the fascist party. We expose how the running of the party has been outsourced to a rabid Loyalist anti-abortionist in Belfast and we reveal that this man is receiving European Union money for peace and reconciliation.
We have also been busy working with the media. Many of the revelations and exposés we have read in the newspapers over the past few weeks have originated from Searchlight.
Forty-seven years after Searchlight was first formed we are proving that we are still ahead of the game.
Dowson's empire
Sonia Gable shines a light on Jim Dowson's string of business and campaigning interests
Solas
NI
Solas NI, a charity with the registration number XR86269, describes itself on its website as a victim support group set up to help bereaved and injured victims of the Northern Ireland Troubles. It says its aim is "to ensure that those most affected by the Troubles have recourse to a non-political and non-sectarian organisation which caters specifically for their needs". It was formed in 2003 and up to 2007 had received £111,479 of funding under a European Union programme for peace and reconciliation.
Jim Dowson is not known to hold any position in Solas, but its chair is Alex Thomas, a business partner of Dowson and husband of his sister-in-law, who is also involved in Solas. The charity also uses the same address and telephone number as another Dowson organisation, the Christian Youth Fellowship.
Adlorries.com Ltd
Jim Dowson is the sole director of Adlorries.com Ltd, the company that hired the Belfast staff. Incorporated in October 2004 it describes itself as "an independent company providing professional services without prejudice to NGOs, charities and political organisations … We are the complete business solution," its scanty website claims.
The BNP's "truth truck", better known outside the party as the lie lorry
The company owns little of substance. Its latest accounts show fixed assets plus cash of nearly £27,000 against £25,000 owed in debts and long-term loans.
One of its assets is the BNP's "truth truck", better known outside the party as the lie lorry. Last year the BNP claimed to have bought the truck after a successful appeal to supporters to raise the £26,550 needed. However when bailiffs tried to enforce a county court judgement against the BNP, the party's solicitors responded that the vehicle was "registered in the name of another person who … has no connection with the judgement debtors".
In fact the truth truck turned out to be the same vehicle that Dowson had bought two years earlier for the anti-abortion UK LifeLeague, after appealing for donations from supporters. It even had the same name. A press release issued in April 2006 claimed Operation Truth Truck would "enable the pro-life message to reach the unreached across the towns and cities of Britain". The UK LifeLeague and the BNP had milked their gullible supporters twice over for the same "truth truck" which never left the ownership of Adlorries.com.
Albion Logistical Solutions Ltd
Incorporated in February 2009, Albion Logistical Solutions Ltd has an address in Loughborough and one director, Jim Dowson. It was this company that organised the printing of over 28 million glossy BNP European election leaflets earlier this year.
Midas Consultancy
Early in 2008 BNP senior officers and activists were invited to attend "high level management training" arranged by "a professional management consultancy and training company", which "uses a property in Spain as its main training base". Searchlight quickly established that the organiser was a Belfast-based business called the Midas Consultancy, the name under which Jim Dowson marketed his management and fundraising skills, and that the training base was in Valencia on the Costa Blanca.
Christian Youth Fellowship
The Christian Youth Fellowship shares premises with Solas NI and its contact person is listed as J Dowson. Its activities centre around anti-abortion and anti-gay campaigning, though in May it took part in the launch of TIDY Northern Ireland's Clean Coast Programme on Portrush, Whiterocks beach.
UK
LifeLeague
Jim Dowson is the main public face of the hardline anti-abortion UK LifeLeague, which uses highly provocative tactics, such as publishing the home addresses of abortion clinic staff. Similar actions by anti-abortion groups in the US have resulted in the murder of doctors.
Formed in 1999, the LifeLeague claims to be committed to peaceful campaigning "to end the violence of abortion". Although its website states that "campaigning is an important part of what we do", the organisation appears to have done nothing since early 2008 apart from raising money.
Ultraplumb.com
Ltd
Jim Dowson helped his eldest son, James Dowson Jr, to set up Ultraplumb.com Ltd, a company registered at Dowson's address in Cumbernauld, Scotland, in 2007. Dowson Jr, 21, (pictured) is the sole director and Marion Thomas, Dowson Sr's sister-in-law, is the Company Secretary. Ultraplumb styles itself as "Northern Ireland's premier plumbing company" but of the three testimonials on its website, dated 2007, one is from Thomas herself. Its accounts are several months overdue for filing at Companies House.
After the exposé of the BNP's Belfast bunker operation in the Irish press, Dowson Jr painted out the signs on his company's vans, fearing reprisals from the local population.
BNP
offices in Stroud and Nuneaton
Stroud: The large grey stone house on a Stroud industrial estate is not the sort of place one might expect the BNP to occupy. Jim Dowson's company Adlorries.com Ltd leased three rooms at Unit 13, Salmon Springs Trading Estate, Painswick Road, Stroud for three years, paying £5,000 a year in rent to the owner, D J Melsome Ltd. They were to be used as a training centre for the BNP run by Michaela Mackenzie, but have remained empty after the party sacked her from her posts as administration officer and national nominating officer. Like many in the BNP it appears she clashed with Dowson, but came off second best. Unfortunately for Dowson, the lease has no cancellation clause.
Nuneaton:
Alwyn Deacon, the BNP's West Midlands regional organiser, leases Unit 3
Slingsby Close, Attleborough Fields Industrial Estate, Nuneaton from
Nuneaton and Bedworth council, where the BNP has one councillor following
the resignation of a second last month. Deacon is also the BNP's enquiries
secretary and national dispatch manager, a job he carries out at the unit.
Like the unit the BNP secretly occupied on a Deeside industrial estate last year, until the landlords evicted the party following a Searchlight exposé, the Nuneaton premises also houses Excalibur, the BNP's merchandising operation. Since May Excalibur has been run privately by Arthur Kemp, the BNP's foreign affairs spokesman, under an annually renewable licence from the party. Excalibur's range of tatty cringe-making and overpriced goods include golliwogs, Replica Victoria Crosses, condemned by the Ministry of Defence as an insult to British troops' heroism, Enoch Powell t-shirts and copies of Kemp's own dismal books.
The Nuneaton unit also houses a call centre with 20 phone lines, where BNP staff try to solicit as much money as possible in donations and merchandise sales from past Excalibur customers, party members, and anyone else unfortunate enough to be on their phone number list.
Friday: Dissecting the Dowsons The leak of the BNP membership list last month has turned the spotlight on the party’s Belfast call centre, the tensions it has caused in the party, and the links between the man who runs it and a charity that has received a six-figure sum in EU funding. Matthew Collins and Simon Cressy investigate.
-
A place in the sunJim Dowson has been at the centre of allegations about his property dealings Searchlight Magazine December 2009
-
BNP links to Troubles charity A fundraising expert for the far-right BNP helped head a charity for Troubles’ victims that has raked in taxpayers’ cash. Sunday Life 6 December 2009
-
Dissecting the DowsonsPart 3 of a three part investigation Searchlight Magazine November 2009
-
Dowson's empirePart 2 of a three part investigation Searchlight Magazine November 2009
-
From rags to richesPart 1 of a three part investigation Searchlight Magazine November 2009
-
BNP Bosses UncoveredA former employee lifts the lid on life working for 44-year-old Jim Dowson and the BNP in Belfast by Steven Moore Sunday World October 2009
-
'Cash strapped' BNP fails to deliver accounts Sonia Gable on the BNP’s current financial problemsSearchlight Magazine September 2009
-
The man who bought the BNPSonia Gable untangles a BNP financial webSearchlight Magazine July 2009
-
Truth truck or lie lorry?Sonia Gable uncovers another BNP financial scandalSearchlight Magazine August 2008
-
BNP accounts don't add upSonia Gable analyses the BNP’s latest figuresSearchlight Magazine September 2008
You may also be interested to read
Find a cause and milk - that is the message
Jim Dowson's Empire
QUOTE
Jim Dowson: How a militant anti-abortionist took over the BNP. Part 2 of a
three part investigation.
| Part 1 From rags to riches | Part 3 Dissecting the Dowsons |
Through
the keyhole
Yesterday we started a serialisation from the current issue of Searchlight Magazine which features a special investigation into the heart of the BNP. We highlight the organisational set-up, the secret locations and the people running the fascist party. We expose how the running of the party has been outsourced to a rabid Loyalist anti-abortionist in Belfast and we reveal that this man is receiving European Union money for peace and reconciliation.
We have also been busy working with the media. Many of the revelations and exposés we have read in the newspapers over the past few weeks have originated from Searchlight.
Forty-seven years after Searchlight was first formed we are proving that we are still ahead of the game.
Dowson's empire
Sonia Gable shines a light on Jim Dowson's
string of business and campaigning interests
Solas
NI
Solas NI, a charity with the registration number XR86269, describes itself on its website as a victim support group set up to help bereaved and injured victims of the Northern Ireland Troubles. It says its aim is "to ensure that those most affected by the Troubles have recourse to a non-political and non-sectarian organisation which caters specifically for their needs". It was formed in 2003 and up to 2007 had received £111,479 of funding under a European Union programme for peace and reconciliation.
Jim Dowson is not known to hold any position in Solas, but its chair is Alex Thomas, a business partner of Dowson and husband of his sister-in-law, who is also involved in Solas. The charity also uses the same address and telephone number as another Dowson organisation, the Christian Youth Fellowship.
Adlorries.com Ltd
Jim Dowson is the sole director of
Adlorries.com Ltd, the company that hired the Belfast staff. Incorporated in
October 2004 it describes itself as "an independent company providing
professional services without prejudice to NGOs, charities and political
organisations … We are the complete business solution," its scanty website
claims.
The BNP's "truth truck", better known outside the party as the lie lorry
The company owns little of substance. Its latest accounts show fixed assets plus cash of nearly £27,000 against £25,000 owed in debts and long-term loans.
One of its assets is the BNP's "truth truck", better known outside the party as the lie lorry. Last year the BNP claimed to have bought the truck after a successful appeal to supporters to raise the £26,550 needed. However when bailiffs tried to enforce a county court judgement against the BNP, the party's solicitors responded that the vehicle was "registered in the name of another person who … has no connection with the judgement debtors".
In fact the truth truck turned out to be the same vehicle that Dowson had bought two years earlier for the anti-abortion UK LifeLeague, after appealing for donations from supporters. It even had the same name. A press release issued in April 2006 claimed Operation Truth Truck would "enable the pro-life message to reach the unreached across the towns and cities of Britain". The UK LifeLeague and the BNP had milked their gullible supporters twice over for the same "truth truck" which never left the ownership of Adlorries.com.
Albion Logistical Solutions Ltd
Incorporated in February 2009, Albion Logistical Solutions Ltd has an address in Loughborough and one director, Jim Dowson. It was this company that organised the printing of over 28 million glossy BNP European election leaflets earlier this year.
Midas Consultancy
Early in 2008 BNP senior officers and
activists were invited to attend "high level management training" arranged by
"a professional management consultancy and training company", which "uses a
property in Spain as its main training base". Searchlight quickly
established that the organiser was a Belfast-based business called the Midas
Consultancy, the name under which Jim Dowson marketed his management and
fundraising skills, and that the training base was in Valencia on the Costa
Blanca.
Christian Youth Fellowship
The Christian Youth Fellowship shares
premises with Solas NI and its contact person is listed as J Dowson. Its
activities centre around anti-abortion and anti-gay campaigning, though in May
it took part in the launch of TIDY Northern Ireland's Clean Coast Programme on
Portrush, Whiterocks beach.
UK
LifeLeague
Jim Dowson is the main public face of the
hardline anti-abortion UK LifeLeague, which uses highly provocative tactics,
such as publishing the home addresses of abortion clinic staff. Similar
actions by anti-abortion groups in the US have resulted in the murder of
doctors.
Formed in 1999, the LifeLeague claims to be committed to peaceful campaigning "to end the violence of abortion". Although its website states that "campaigning is an important part of what we do", the organisation appears to have done nothing since early 2008 apart from raising money.
Ultraplumb.com
Ltd
Jim Dowson helped his eldest son, James Dowson Jr, to set up Ultraplumb.com Ltd, a company registered at Dowson's address in Cumbernauld, Scotland, in 2007. Dowson Jr, 21, (pictured) is the sole director and Marion Thomas, Dowson Sr's sister-in-law, is the Company Secretary. Ultraplumb styles itself as "Northern Ireland's premier plumbing company" but of the three testimonials on its website, dated 2007, one is from Thomas herself. Its accounts are several months overdue for filing at Companies House.
After the exposé of the BNP's Belfast bunker operation in the Irish press, Dowson Jr painted out the signs on his company's vans, fearing reprisals from the local population.
BNP
offices in Stroud and Nuneaton
Stroud: The
large grey stone house on a Stroud industrial estate is not the sort of
place one might expect the BNP to occupy. Jim Dowson's company
Adlorries.com Ltd leased three rooms at Unit 13, Salmon Springs Trading
Estate, Painswick Road, Stroud for three years, paying £5,000 a year in
rent to the owner, D J Melsome Ltd. They were to be used as a training
centre for the BNP run by Michaela Mackenzie, but have remained empty
after the party sacked her from her posts as administration officer and
national nominating officer. Like many in the BNP it appears she clashed
with Dowson, but came off second best. Unfortunately for Dowson, the lease
has no cancellation clause.
Nuneaton:
Alwyn Deacon, the BNP's West Midlands regional organiser, leases Unit 3
Slingsby Close, Attleborough Fields Industrial Estate, Nuneaton from
Nuneaton and Bedworth council, where the BNP has one councillor following
the resignation of a second last month. Deacon is also the BNP's enquiries
secretary and national dispatch manager, a job he carries out at the unit.
Like the unit the BNP secretly occupied on a Deeside industrial estate last year, until the landlords evicted the party following a Searchlight exposé, the Nuneaton premises also houses Excalibur, the BNP's merchandising operation. Since May Excalibur has been run privately by Arthur Kemp, the BNP's foreign affairs spokesman, under an annually renewable licence from the party. Excalibur's range of tatty cringe-making and overpriced goods include golliwogs, Replica Victoria Crosses, condemned by the Ministry of Defence as an insult to British troops' heroism, Enoch Powell t-shirts and copies of Kemp's own dismal books.
The Nuneaton unit also houses a call centre with 20 phone lines, where BNP staff try to solicit as much money as possible in donations and merchandise sales from past Excalibur customers, party members, and anyone else unfortunate enough to be on their phone number list.
Friday: Dissecting the Dowsons The leak of the BNP membership list last month has turned the spotlight on the party’s Belfast call centre, the tensions it has caused in the party, and the links between the man who runs it and a charity that has received a six-figure sum in EU funding. Matthew Collins and Simon Cressy investigate.
-
A place in the sun Jim Dowson has been at the centre of allegations about his property dealings Searchlight Magazine December 2009
-
BNP links to Troubles charity A fundraising expert for the far-right BNP helped head a charity for Troubles’ victims that has raked in taxpayers’ cash. Sunday Life 6 December 2009
-
Dissecting the Dowsons Part 3 of a three part investigation Searchlight Magazine November 2009
-
Dowson's empire Part 2 of a three part investigation Searchlight Magazine November 2009
-
From rags to riches Part 1 of a three part investigation Searchlight Magazine November 2009
-
BNP Bosses Uncovered A former employee lifts the lid on life working for 44-year-old Jim Dowson and the BNP in Belfast by Steven Moore Sunday World October 2009
-
'Cash strapped' BNP fails to deliver accounts Sonia Gable on the BNP’s current financial problems Searchlight Magazine September 2009
-
The man who bought the BNP Sonia Gable untangles a BNP financial web Searchlight Magazine July 2009
-
Truth truck or lie lorry? Sonia Gable uncovers another BNP financial scandal Searchlight Magazine August 2008
-
BNP accounts don't add up Sonia Gable analyses the BNP’s latest figures Searchlight Magazine September 2008
You may also be interested to read
UNQUOTE
The smell test is not good but
comes from expert liars. Searchlight is a bunch
of crooks with convictions to prove it.
The Advances Brought to the British National Party by the Midas Consultancy
QUOTE
"Today," Mr Darby
wrote, the party has “a substantial and stable fundraising income, rapidly
growing membership, and in the last 11 months we have fought two of the
largest national election campaigns in the party's history, and remain
relatively debt free.
UNQUOTE
Believe it if you want. I do not.
3. Jim Dowson: A place in the sun
" Jim
Dowson, Ulster loyalist, militant anti-abortionist and the man who bought
the British National Party, has been at the centre of ..."
www.hopenothate.org.uk/Jim-Dowson-A-place-in-the-sun
"View
Jim Dowson's professional
profile on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the world's largest business network, helping
professionals like Jim Dowson discover inside ..."
www.linkedin.com/in/jimdowson
5. Exclusive: BNP's Scots fundraiser is criminal with links to ...
" Jim
Dowson is a former Orangeman who featured on a tape of flute band music
supporting murderer Michael Stone. ..."
www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2009/06/03/exclusive-bnp-s-scots-fundraiser-is-criminal-with-links-to-loyalist-killer-86908-21410820/
BNP's Scots fundraiser is criminal with links to Loyalist Killer
QUOTE
The BNP's top fundraiser is today exposed as a
militant anti-abortion campaigner with links to a Loyalist killer and a string
of criminal convictions. Jim Dowson is a former
Orangeman who featured on a tape of flute band music supporting murderer
Michael Stone. He was also the face of a hardline pro-life organisation who
posted names and addresses of pro-choice MSPs and a family planning group boss
on the internet. Dowson, of Cumbernauld, near Glasgow, is now a key aide to
BNP leader Nick Griffin. Griffin appointed Dowson as the party's money man and
campaign organiser for their attempt to win seats in tomorrow's European
Parliament election.........
But we can reveal Dowson, 44, as a "rent-a-cause" extremist who was kicked out of the Orange Order. Dowson formed Precious Life Scotland, later UK LifeLeague, in 1999 after meetings with Ireland's notorious Youth Defence, who had previously stormed buildings in Dublin in their crusade against a woman's right to choose. He said he joined the antiabortion movement after being approached in the street by activists during a holiday in Belfast and felt disgusted by the aborted foetus images in their leaflets........
Dowson has a list of criminal convictions
including breach of the peace in 1986, possession of a weapon and breach of
the peace in 1991 and criminal damage in 1992. He was forced out of his local
Orange Lodge and took part in demonstrations against fellow Orangemen,
attacking them as "atheists and boozers" after he was "born again". Dowson
denied claims he constantly referred to Catholics as "Fenian scum", but did
admit to producing flute band tapes which glorified the worst Loyalist
atrocities.
UNQUOTE
The Loyalist killer link is trivial. It was used as
a headline to make him look bad. The rest is rather worse. Brown is another
Jock with a dirty background.
"This is in the hands of
Nick Griffin and Jim Dowson, not me. It should also be noted that they
have decided to put a personal grudge against me before the ..."
www.wikio.co.uk/news/Jim+Dowson
7. The British National Party — Blog — Tags — Jim-dowson
" Jim
Dowson addresses a meeting of the Chippenham constituency BNP. .... Emma
Colgate has replaced consultant
Jim Dowson as British
National Party ..."
bnp.org.uk/tag/jim-dowson/
8. Jim Dowson (jdowson) on Twitter
"Get short, timely
messages from Jim Dowson. Twitter is a rich source of instantly .... Name
Jim Dowson; Location
Harvard, MA; Bio CTO, Global Services @ EMC ..."
twitter.com/jdowson
9. YouTube - Blackburn BNP - Roadshow 29/03/10. Jim Dowson & Nick ...
"We are at war! A great
speech delivered by Jim Dowson at the BNP Roadshow, Blackburn. Followed by
another powerful, moving speech by Nick Griffin. Credits."
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KclOhIcNQ4A
10. Griffin Watch. The New Griffin File.: Jim Dowson
"An interesting
phone call was received this morning by a member of the G.W. team, the caller
purporting to be Jim Dowson was a little upset, ..."
griffinwatch-nwn.blogspot.com/2009/10/jim-dowson.html
11. West Midlands Unity: Angry Bennett blows lid on "Laurel and Hardy ...
"Nick Griffin and
Jim Dowson deliberately
set out to pick this fight with Unilever - not me. I advised strongly against
it. ..."
westmidlandsunity.blogspot.com/2010/05/angry-bennett-blows-lid-on-laurel-and.html
" Jim
Dowson is on Facebook. Join Facebook to connect with
Jim Dowson and others you may know. Facebook gives
people the power to share and makes the world ..."
www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Dowson/1488745620
13. Jim Dowson, Rocket Garage, John Street, Cullercoats, North Shields ...
"Business profile:
Jim Dowson, Rocket
Garage, John Street, Cullercoats, North Shields, Tyne and wear, NE30
4PL,United Kingdom - garages repair, modification, ..."
www.brownbook.net/business/1688853/jim-dowson
14. SOCIALIST UNITY » BNP WEBSITE STILL FROZEN
"Bennett reveals that
Jim Dowson was behind the
misconceived attempt to generate publicity and funds and that Griffin and
Dowson now expected ..."
www.socialistunity.com/?p=5804
15. Lancaster Unity: Jim Dowson: How a militant anti-abortionist took ...
"Ten years ago
Jim Dowson (pictured
left) was a down-at-heel anti-abortion campaigner and hardline Protestant, who
had marched with a ..."
lancasteruaf.blogspot.com/2009/11/jim-dowson-how-militant-anti.html
16. Jim Dowson Leck Snr | Facebook
" Jim
Dowson Leck Snr is on Facebook. Join Facebook to connect with
Jim Dowson Leck Snr and others you may know. Facebook
gives people the power to share and ..."
en-gb.facebook.com/people/Jim-Dowson-Leck-Snr/100000426008539
17. Anti-abortionists turn sights on schools and hospitals in US-style ...
"Mr Horsley has said in
the past: "Jim [Dowson] is really the key to seeing the expectation of
punishment develop in the UK." ..."
www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/mar/27/faithschools.religion
19. BNP falling apart AGAIN - Page 8 - Nationalists Online
"Does anybody know where
I can report Jim Dowson and his Uk Life League's ... Jim Dowson is creaming
7.5% of monies raised by the BNP in ..."
www.nwn-forum.co.uk/showthread.php?p=30405
From Rags To Riches
QUOTE
By Gerry Gable
Ten years ago Jim Dowson (pictured) was a down-at-heel anti-abortion campaigner and hardline Protestant, who had marched with a loyalist band that played songs in praise of the convicted loyalist murderer Michael Stone (pictured below).His luck changed when he formed an alliance with Justin Barrett, a far-right Catholic lawyer and leader of the notorious Irish anti-abortion group Youth Defence, which had previously stormed buildings in Dublin in their crusade against a woman's right to choose. In 2000 Barrett had attended a rally of the German nazi National Democratic Party, where he met Roberto Fiore, the Italian fascist friend and mentor of Nick Griffin, the BNP leader. The trip was arranged by Derek Holland, one of Griffin's old colleagues from the days of the National Front Political Soldiers.
Barrett attracted attention as the lead spokesperson of the successful Irish campaign against the Nice Treaty in 2001 and money started to flow from far-right anti-abortionists in the United States.
In 1999 Dowson had formed Precious Life Scotland and it was through cooperation between his group and Youth Defence that he met Barrett. The link proved beneficial when Barrett pitched £50,000 into Dowson's organisation to pay for the production of anti-abortion CDs and video tapes to be distributed to schools and churches in Northern Ireland and Scotland.
Dowson was a "rent-a-cause" extremist who had been kicked out of the Orange Order. He has a list of criminal convictions including breach of the peace in 1986, possession of a weapon and breach of the peace in 1991 and criminal damage in 1992. Although a Protestant, he was happy to sell thousands of photographs of the Pope at inflated prices to Catholics in the Irish Republic.
Barrett faded from the public arena after the Nice Treaty vote was rerun and went the other way. His political demise was hastened after the publication of his book The National Way Forward, in which he described immigration as "genocidal". He also became increasingly antisemitic, influenced by the nazi leaders he had met in Germany.
In contrast, Dowson's campaigning activities grew. He turned his sights on gay people and encouraged his followers to abuse and threaten people who attended or worked in abortion clinics.
This resulted in Dowson parting company with some of his Precious Life fellow activists, but he was now in a financial position to go it alone, turning his faction into the UK LifeLeague. He never looked back.
Dowson, 45, started working with the British National Party late in 2007, and he quickly revolutionised its fundraising. His first appeal, launched at the time the BNP was tearing itself apart in an internal rebellion, was carried out as a free sample to show the party what he could do, but since then he has worked on a percentage commission.
His work for the BNP grew to encompass the provision of manage-ment training in Spain and revamping the party's administration. Early in 2009 he set up the Belfast call centre, piggybacking it on his successful fundraising for the LifeLeague, thereby cutting costs and perhaps giving doubtful BNP officers the impression of a larger operation than it actually is.
Over the past two years he has clearly raised huge sums for the party, although it remains financially strapped. Partly this is the result of scams, such as the truth truck, which Griffin claimed had been bought with thousands of pounds of supporters' donations. It turned out still to belong to Dowson's private company, Adlorries.com, and, like much of the other equipment the BNP claimed to have bought, it was only leased by the party.
Today Dowson practically owns the BNP, which he briefly joined to placate his critics but left as soon as the heat was off him. He remains at loggerheads with many senior party officers and employees. One, whom he sacked in spring, is heading for an employment tribunal.
Griffin's claim that the BNP is being flooded with donations via Dowson's call centre is a lie. Income is down to a trickle and membership is a mere 8,000 or so. People are not queuing up to join after the end of the three-month moratorium on membership, they are leaving in droves, especially since the latest membership list leak from Dowson's Belfast bunker.
All this comes on top of the party's forced climbdown over its racist constitution, the non-appearance of its 2008 accounts and concern over the number of senior party officers who have been put on the European Parliament payroll as staff of the two BNP MEPs.
UNQUOTE
Treat anything from Gerry Gable with caution. See Searchlight on the point. He cost the BBC £500,000 in Libel and won an election for Labour
Dissecting the Dowsons
QUOTE
The posting on the internet of a British National Party membership list two days before the BNP leader's prized appearance on Question Time was a huge embarrassment to the fascist party. After the BNP lost an earlier list of members and contacts last year, the party promised to put security measures in place to ensure such a thing could never happen again. It was only because of this promise that the BNP managed to stem a walkout of members concerned about losing their jobs and friends because of the revelation of their racist adherence.Searchlight can now reveal that the "security measures" consisted of handing over the files to Jim Dowson, a hardline anti-abortion activist with a string of criminal convictions, who runs the party's "secret" administrative lair in Northern Ireland.
UNQUOTE
Dowson sounds like a wrong'un but then the people of Searchlight have their own nasty track record and the convictions to prove it. They used the BBC to commit major libel against Neil Hamilton and get Labour into power. Are you pleased with the result?
Jim Dowson ex Wiki
James "Jim" Dowson (born September 1964)[1] is a Scottish far-right political activist. From Airdrie, North Lanarkshire, Scotland.[2] Dowson has been active across the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States. He has been described by The Times as "the invisible man of Britain's far right".[3]After joining and falling out with the Orange Order, Dowson was active as an anti-abortion militant. He joined the [ allegedly ] 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 US president Donald Trump in his 2016 election campaign.
Knights Templar International ex RationalWiki
It was set up by Jim Dowson, a chancer on the make. It is at the receiving end of a blatantly hostile write up. It is abusive for the wrong reasons.