Rowley, the Belgian Popcorn scene, and the Beach Music scene in the Carolinas (US), have never claimed to be exclusively soul or RnB movements. They simply play the music that they like to hear , a lot of which does happen to be soul or RnB, but you're right, there's also a hell of a lot of very twee pop rubbish played .
Of course the northern scene has suffered the pop curse at various times but remains overwhelmingly a "soul" scene.