A FAR-RIGHT group that has provided funding to vigilante groups in Scotland has been promoting swords, daggers and battle axes to its supporters, The National can reveal.
Emails sent to Knight Templar International’s (KTI) mailing list in recent weeks have advertised a range of weapons for sale, while separate messages have urged supporters to back and join proposed “Christian defence patrols” in the UK.
The organisation – which styles itself as a modern-day Christian Knights Templar movement – is led by Jim Dowson, a veteran far-right activist who has been involved in British nationalist politics for decades.
We previously reported on how KTI provided support to vigilante-style groups in Scotland, including providing the Glasgow group Scots Active with stab vests, bodycams and high-visibility security jackets.
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But the group is also looking to start its own vigilante patrols across the UK, we can reveal.
In one recent email on August 25, which The National has seen, subscribers were urged to support the organisation’s newly announced “Christian defence fund/patrols”, with KTI saying it was establishing “structured, trained, non-political Christian volunteer patrols” that would be “peaceful, lawful, and accountable”.
But the appeal also used inflammatory language, making the false claim that more than a million British girls had been “groomed and gang-raped by Muslim predators” and adding that the “men of this Nation must step up to defend our own girls”.
It said the first team was already ready to deploy in a “small Islamist-dominated town on the edge of Manchester” and described its members as “disciplined young Christian men, including veterans”.
The email asked for £3290 to equip 12 men with stab-resistant vests, body cameras, high-visibility identification and secure communications.
But elsewhere in its communications to supporters, KTI has also been openly promoting weapons using the imagery and language of the medieval Knights Templar.
A recent email from September 3 offered an “Exclusive Knights Templar Order Warrior Package”, including what KTI called an “official Templar Battle LIONHEART Sword and Matching Dagger”.
The weapons were described as high-carbon steel blades forged and hand-finished in Spain.
In another email, KTI promoted a “Templar battle axe” made from “1065 high carbon steel”, with a hardwood shaft and steel reinforcement.
“This is a real fighting weapon and not an ornament,” the email stated, urging the recipient to “get it TODAY while stocks last”.
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Other recent promotions have included kukri knives – a type of blade traditionally associated with Gurkha regiment soldiers in the British Army.
When asked for comment, Dowson rejected the suggestion that KTI was encouraging supporters to buy dangerous weapons, saying the items advertised were replicas intended as ornaments and that none of the blades were sharp or had an edge.
When it was pointed out that the battle axe had been described in a KTI email as both a “massive weapon” and a “real fighting weapon and not an ornament”, Dowson replied: “It is an ornament.”
He also said similar items could be bought from “hundreds and hundreds” of other outlets.
Dowson also sought to distance KTI from vigilante groups operating in England, saying the organisation had “nothing to do with” groups involving people in balaclavas marching in Dover and Portsmouth over the weekend, and that it “wouldn’t have any dealings with these people anyway whatsoever”.
The Scottish Greens, meanwhile, have described this new development as “deeply disturbing”.
“Vigilantism is not community safety. The promotion of weapons alongside calls for people to join so-called ‘Christian patrols’ represents an extremely concerning escalation in the far-right’s attempts to spread hatred and misinformation,” Scottish Greens spokesperson for justice, Maggie Chapman said.
“There is nothing Christian about arming vigilantes or encouraging people to take weapons onto our streets. Community safety is about people looking out for each other, not self-appointed gangs patrolling the streets, intimidating people of colour and making all communities feel less safe.”
The Greens MSP added: “Violence against women and girls is a profound and serious issue, but it must never be weaponised as a cover for racism or extremism. This kind of rhetoric risks creating fear, intimidation and ultimately putting people in danger, particularly migrants, Muslims and people of colour who are so often the targets of the far right.”
She went on: “Police Scotland and the Scottish Government must take these developments seriously and ensure that any links between extremist organisations, vigilante activity and the promotion of weapons are properly investigated. We must not wait until vigilantism turns into serious and sustained violence.”
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