FOUR SNP MPs who have given an ultimatum to the BBC to make fundamental changes to the service in Scotland or face a licence fee boycott are seeking a meeting with the broadcaster’s boss.

Kenny MacAskill, Angus MacNeil, Douglas Chapman and Neale Hanvey have written to director-general Tim Davie saying there is currently “significant disquiet over editorial balance” and setting out a series of demands which they say are required.

They warned that unless action was taken they would back a campaign by Yes supporters not to pay the licence fee.

MacAskill and his three parliamentary colleagues have yet to hear back from Davie after sending the letter to him on Friday.

READ MORE: SNP MPs warn BBC they will back licence fee boycott if big changes aren't made

He told The National the four MPs wanted to meet with Davie either in person or online.

“I don’t see why the new director-general should be afraid to meet with us.

“Our constituents have huge concerns and they are not just people sympathetic to the SNP or the Yes movement. Everyone who is a TV watcher is looking at the BBC and wondering what as happened.”

The former justice secretary said a major concern for many Scots was what he claimed the BBC’s role in boosting the profile of the former Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage.

“The BBC single handedly gave a profile to a man and to a cause that [Nigel Farage and Brexit] could not ever have acquired through private funds,” he said.

“There is also the limited representative of the SNP. Despite being the third party in the UK they still have to play tail end Charlie to a Liberal Democrat party that hardly has the representation across the UK that the SNP has in the limited geographical area of Scotland.

“But more than that is just the failure of BBC Scotland to offer a service to people in Scotland that we are entitled to.”

MacAskill pointed to broadcasting services in Quebec in Canada and Catalonia in Spain which have several bespoke TV stations.

“Other countries of a comparable size and other devolved nations of a comparable size all do significantly better.”

The letter to Davie follows public outrage over the BBC’s decision to end the First Minister’s daily coronavirus briefings after pressure from opposition parties.

Tens of thousands of people signed a petition calling for the decision to be reversed and a protest took place outside the broadcaster’s Scottish headquarters in Glasgow. Bosses later reversed the decision.

READ MORE: IN FULL: MPs' letter to BBC director-general threatening to back fee boycott

The MPs set out five key demands in a paper:

- Devolution of broadcasting and a properly funded BBC Scotland with full capacity to report the news and hold the powerful to account

- Abolition of the TV licence in Scotland

- Powers for Scotland to levy a broadcasting tax as is currently done in Sweden

- A Scottish Government funded BBC Scotland (paid for with that broadcasting tax) which will buy into BBC programmes on the same basis that Ireland’s RTE or the USA’s PBS do

- A form of consultation in Scotland to ensure the widest possible engagement with a programme for future broadcasting potential in Scotland

As the demands require the UK Government to devolve broadcasting to Scotland, the MPs copied the Davie letter to the UK’s culture secretary Oliver Dowden.

The letter went on: “We are aware there are also wider discussions ongoing amongst the Yes Movement for a national campaign to boycott the licence fee. Given the current service and future dangers that is in our view quite understandable.”

The BBC was asked for a comment last night. Responding to the MP’s letter, a spokesperson said the BBC will respond in due course.