Far-ideal extremists operating Skye soap small business

Clean &amp Pure Soap is becoming run by far-ideal extremists (Image: Newsquest)

An organic, eco-friendly small business on Skye is becoming run by far-ideal figures higher up in the white nationalist group Patriotic Option.

Clean &amp Pure Soap advertises itself as “handmade on the isle of Skye applying higher good quality ingredients”, touting its palm oil and cruelty free of charge credentials and stating that its “packaging and wrapping is eco-friendly”.

Its internet site tells prospective buyers that they will obtain 1g of “native British” wildflower seeds to assistance regenerate the countryside, as properly as delivering guidelines on how to plant them.

Even so, The Herald can reveal that the small business is run by Claire Ellis, Patriotic Alternative’s Scotland admin officer whose fiancé is Kenny Smith, a former BNP member who is the national admin officer for the group.

PA’s Scottish branch is described by anti-fascist and anti-racist group Hope Not Hate as “perhaps its most active” and has gained interest in current weeks for protesting against asylum seekers becoming housed in Erskine.

Study Extra: How the tiny town of Erskine became a flashpoint for racial hate

Ms Ellis described the small business on a PA reside stream as an try at becoming “financially steady on my own” right after becoming suspended from her job for refusing to put on a mask.

Asked by the Herald about her item she stated: “My solutions are created from the finest organic good quality components and sourced locally exactly where achievable to lessen my eco footprint.

“Clean &amp Pure Soap also supports environmental difficulties, gifting Native Wildflower seeds with every single order to assistance our bees. I’m not positive if this tends to make my solutions nationalist per se, I nevertheless am a proud nationalist.”

Sam Melia, a different top figure in the organisation, stated on the exact same get in touch with that becoming “self-sufficient” is a essential objective for these with prominent roles in PA due to the threat of becoming exposed by anti-fascist and anti-racist groups.

David Lawrence, a senior researcher at Hope Not Hate says: “They’re a tiny group but pretty intense, they make attempts to hide their extremism behind a type of ‘family-friendly’ image.

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“Putting across this ‘wholesome’ image is partly to undercut charges of extremism.

“PA as an organisation are pretty a lot a fascist organisation, they’re led by a man who recommends Mein Kampf to his audience, they’re rife with holocaust deniers, hardcore anti-semites and the rest of it but there’s this try to whitewash their image and I consider these slightly kitschy brands play into that.

“It’s also a way to funnel dollars into the organisation so it can assistance its activism.

HeraldScotland: Clean &amp Pure Soap’s internet site

Clean &amp Pure Soap’s internet site (Image: Newsquest)

“They see themselves as dissidents outdoors of the mainstream so they’re attempting to set up suggests of assistance outdoors the mainstream since they’re conscious the huge majority of society views their politics with disgust.

“They’re conscious they could drop their jobs more than some of the beliefs that they hold, so it is a way to safe against that.

“They see it as a way of reaching (monetary) independence and therefore becoming in a position to throw themselves additional completely into activism, but these are pretty tiny issues – I’d be interested to know the annual revenue of Clean &amp Pure Soap but I doubt it is vast.”

Ms Ellis was previously primarily based in Teighnmouth, Devon, and served an organiser for PA’s south-west branch, which flew a banner more than Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium in April 2022. She announced in May well of that year that she’d be moving to Scotland to “start a new life” alongside Mr Smith.

Initially from Slough, she claims to have served in the Royal Navy. She got engaged to Mr Smith at Patriotic Alternative’s conference in Scotland in October 2022.

HeraldScotland: Kenny Smith and Claire Ellis are top figures in white nationalist group Patriotic Option

Kenny Smith and Claire Ellis are top figures in white nationalist group Patriotic Option (Image: Newsquest)

The organization was founded alongside Jody Swingler, a common streamer inside the far-ideal movement who gained national interest when, applying a pseudonym, she espoused the so-referred to as ‘Great Replacement Theory’ in an LBC telephone-in with Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer in 2020.

Ms Swingler described Ms Ellis as “the boss” of the organization in a video get in touch with of PA activists in November 2021, which integrated leader Mark Collett. She is no longer involved with Clean &amp Pure Soap.

Collett, a different former BNP member who has expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler and referred to as AIDs a ‘friendly disease’, stated in the get in touch with that: “we’ve been creating a network of nationalist businesses… all other ethnic groups are pretty fantastic at maintaining their dollars inside their personal group”.

Study Extra: Erskine hotel asylum seekers row: inside a neighborhood meeting

Mr Lawrence says: “One of the central aims of the group is to build cohesive far-ideal communities: in their perfect planet a society away from society.

“They’re attempting to establish their personal communities away from the mainstream and they view these enterprises, partly, as a way to do that – to attempt and preserve dollars inside their group.

“It’s an emphasis on internal trade and attempting to assistance every single other in that way and I consider that is the primary aim.”

HeraldScotland:

As properly as obtaining stalls at PA events and the group’s national conference in Scotland, Clean &amp Pure Soap has sold its solutions at craft fairs with no indication of the activity it aids to fund. The Herald can reveal Ms Ellis had a stall at a craft fair held at Dornie and District Neighborhood Hall on November 18 and 19. There is no suggestion organisers had any information of the far-ideal hyperlinks of the small business.

Other individuals seem to be similarly unaware of the white nationalist hyperlinks to the organization. Ms Ellis was not too long ago named ‘Maker of the Month’ by micamoma.co.uk, a single of her suppliers. Micamoma could not be reached for comment but there is no suggestion they are conscious of the far-ideal hyperlinks of Clean &amp Pure Soap.

Even though the organization presents itself on its internet site as becoming an environmentally conscious, hand-crafted item and hides its connection to the intense ideal, Ms Ellis’ Twitter web page for the small business declares in its bio: “ethno nationalist and loves becoming white. Supporter of Patriotic Alternative”.

HeraldScotland:

Clean &amp Pure Soap was named amongst Patriotic Alternative’s suggested Christmas gifts for 2021 and is listed on the internet site of Claymore Books, the far-ideal publishing imprint founded by Mr Smith.

Mr Smith, who twice stood for election in Glasgow’s Springburn as a BNP candidate, was accused by Unison of obtaining waved a swastika on Hitler’s birthday on the Isle of Lewis.

He was ousted from the BNP right after leaks posted on the party’s internet site recommended he was involved in operating a weblog which disparaged then leader Nick Griffin as properly as Mr Collett.

Study Extra: Dunoon man arrested for distributing material of far-ideal group

Mr Smith was discovered guilty final year of firearms offences. Each he and Ms Ellis have been photographed in Erskine protesting the housing of asylum seekers in a neighborhood hotel.

There are a quantity of other corporations delivering a supply of funding for Patriotic Option.

One particular such small business is Grandma Towlers, run by PA deputy leader Laura Towler and her husband, Sam Melia. The company’s internet site states that it is “separate” from any other organisation but that “profits from the sales… will be invested back into projects that assistance our people today and our communities”.

Ms Swingler and Ms Ellis each appeared on a reside stream run by the Towlers in August 2021 exactly where their item was advertised as ‘pro-white handmade soap’.

HeraldScotland:

Other enterprises suggested by Claymore Books include things like Celtic Moon candles, Faithful Hound Honeys &amp Syrups and Maypole Antiques. The Celtic cross is a symbol often utilised by far-ideal groups.

Although PA is a fringe group with just a couple of hundred members it harbours an intense ideology, with a lot of members like Mr Collett obtaining hyperlinks to extremist group National Action, a neo-Nazi group which is the initially far-ideal organisation to be banned by the British government due to the fact Planet War II ended.