The story follows former football hooligan Ray Knight (Steven Mackintosh), a normal everyday family man who works as a security guard at a financial trading company in Canary Wharf, the symbol of corporate wealth which looms high over the impoverished communities below. Newfound social responsibilities are trampled underfoot when Ray's racist past is revived amid tensions between Whites and Asians jostling for position on the council housing list. Among those who are wanting to be rehoused in a new development is Ray's alcoholic ex-wife Sadie (Camille Coduri), and his teenage daughter Nikki (Sadie Thompson). After a failed attempt to rehouse Sadie and Nikki, and soon discovering that Nikki is involved in heroin addiction, Ray's anger drives him to re-join a BNP organisation led by his old friend Larry Knowles (Keith Barron).

Ritchie is a Glaswegian chancer with low hopes and no prospects. Disillusioned with city life, he goes undercover at a Highland conservation centre to make his fortune as an illegal pearl fisher with the help of his two hapless and accident prone mates, Danny and Fraser. Here he meets Beth, a pretty English conservationist passionate about saving endangered mussels from the clutches of pearl thieves in the Scottish Highlands. Falling for her instantly, Ritchie must beat off competition in the form of Highland Ranger Ethan, a smooth talking American Adonis convinced that Beth can't resist his charms forever. After the success of pearl fishing attracts the unwanted attentions of old school Glaswegian mobster Gavin and his work at the centre leads him to question his true motivations, Ritchie must risk life and limb to save the Highlands from ecological disaster and win Beth's heart...