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A Scottish fascist has been banned from Hungary after joining paramilitary groups targeting desperate refugees.

Jim Dowson, former second-in-command of the far-right British National Party, has been kicked out of the Eastern European country as “a threat to national security”.

Dowson was the man behind Britain First’s sickening “mosque invasion” campaign two years ago. They claimed to be carrying out a “Christian crusade” after barging into mosques in Glasgow and Cumbernauld.

He then emerged as a major player in a Hungarian right-wing movement that aimed to halt refugees coming into the country using armed militias.

Dowson, from Airdrie, has links to loyalist paramilitaries and is an anti-abortion militant.

Ex-BNP leader Nick Griffin – a close ally of Dowson’s – has also been banned from Hungary for his part in the border militia campaign.

A Hungarian cabinet office spokesman said: “James Dowson is an unwanted individual in Hungary who has been banned from the country by the immigration and asylum office.

“The authority also issued a prohibition of entry and residence order against him.

Immigration measures have been conducted on the recommendation of the counter-terrorism centre.”

Dowson’s latest mob of bigots are the white nationalist Knights Templar International.

Anti-racism campaigners Hope Not Hate tracked down Dowson and Griffin in Hungary last year. The pair have ties to Laszlo Toroczkai, the extremist mayor of the border village of Asotthalom.

He has banned Muslim dress and “homosexual propaganda”. He hopes to attract Christian Europeans opposed to multiculturalism to the village.

Knights Templar International have called on sympathisers to settle in Hungary, where prime minister Viktor Orban has an anti-immigrant stance.

He built a fence along the Serbian border to keep refugees out and won’t take the EU quota of those given asylum. Hope Not Hate researcher Matthew Collins says Dowson spearheaded a wave of far-right leaders and activists now basing themselves in Hungary.

The Hope Not Hate website said: “Dowson runs a number of internet operations in Budapest and Belgrade. His pervasive influence and the role he may have played in the presidential

elections have been questioned in the US.

“He is heavily involved in plotting an exodus of hate-filled ‘Christians’ from around the world to settle in Hungary and build a new society free from liberalism, homosexuality and abortion.

“Dowson has vowed to throw his considerable online operation behind a vote for Scottish independence in the belief that it will hasten the destruction of Britain and lead to an exodus of Christians to central and eastern Europe under the austere leadership of God-fearing characters like himself.”

Dowson declined to comment.