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

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

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

Its internet site tells prospective consumers that they will acquire 1g of “native British” wildflower seeds to assist regenerate the countryside, as properly as supplying directions on how to plant them.

Nevertheless, 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 getting 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” just after getting suspended from her job for refusing to put on a mask.

Asked by the Herald about her item she mentioned: “My goods are produced from the finest all-natural high quality components and sourced locally exactly where attainable to decrease my eco footprint.

“Clean &amp Pure Soap also supports environmental concerns, gifting Native Wildflower seeds with every single order to assistance our bees. I’m not certain if this tends to make my goods nationalist per se, I on the other hand am a proud nationalist.”

Sam Melia, yet another major figure in the organisation, mentioned on the similar contact that getting “self-sufficient” is a essential target for these with prominent roles in PA due to the threat of getting exposed by anti-fascist and anti-racist groups.

David Lawrence, a senior researcher at Hope Not Hate says: “They’re a tiny group but quite 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 quite significantly 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 revenue 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 indicates of assistance outdoors the mainstream since they’re conscious the big majority of society views their politics with disgust.

“They’re conscious they could shed 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 attaining (monetary) independence and therefore getting capable to throw themselves much more totally into activism, but these are quite 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 Might 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 major figures in white nationalist group Patriotic Option

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

The firm was founded alongside Jody Swingler, a preferred streamer inside the far-appropriate movement who gained national interest when, utilizing a pseudonym, she espoused the so-named ‘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 firm in a video contact of PA activists in November 2021, which incorporated leader Mark Collett. She is no longer involved with Clean &amp Pure Soap.

Collett, yet another former BNP member who has expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler and named AIDs a ‘friendly disease’, stated in the contact that: “we’ve been constructing a network of nationalist businesses… all other ethnic groups are quite great at maintaining their revenue 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 produce cohesive far-appropriate communities: in their best globe 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 retain revenue 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 principal aim.”

HeraldScotland:

As properly as possessing stalls at PA events and the group’s national conference in Scotland, Clean &amp Pure Soap has sold its goods at craft fairs with no indication of the activity it assists 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 expertise of the far-appropriate hyperlinks of the small business.

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

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

HeraldScotland:

Clean &amp Pure Soap was named amongst Patriotic Alternative’s encouraged Christmas gifts for 2021 and is listed on the internet site of Claymore Books, the far-appropriate 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 possessing waved a swastika on Hitler’s birthday on the Isle of Lewis.

He was ousted from the BNP just 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-appropriate group

Mr Smith was located 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 organizations supplying a supply of funding for Patriotic Option.

1 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 assist 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 encouraged by Claymore Books contain Celtic Moon candles, Faithful Hound Honeys &amp Syrups and Maypole Antiques. The Celtic cross is a symbol regularly utilised by far-appropriate groups.

Even though PA is a fringe group with just a handful of hundred members it harbours an intense ideology, with several members like Mr Collett possessing hyperlinks to extremist group National Action, a neo-Nazi group which is the initial far-appropriate organisation to be banned by the British government considering that Globe War II ended.