Yes campaign should consider licence fee boycott says Macaskill
Former justice secretary Kenny Macaskill has suggested that independence campaigners should consider a campaign of non- payment of the BBC licence fee.
The East Lothian MP hit out after the BBC defended its output in Scotland amid calls for change from a group of Nationalist MPS.
Mr Macaskill, along with f e l l o w S NP MPS Do u g l a s Chapman, Angus Macneil and Neale Hanvey, penned a l e t t e r t o t h e n e w B B C director- general Tim Davie recently, calling for changes t o t he way t he corporation operates, including the replacement of t he l i cence fee in Scotland with a broadcasting tax set at Holyrood.
But in his response, corporation chief refused the MPS' r equest f or a meeting and directed them to BBC bosses in Glasgow.
But Mr Macaskill told The
Na t i o n a l n e ws p a p e r t h a t campaign of licence fee nonpayment a mong Yes c a mpaigners should now be considered.
He said: “We stand by what we said. If there is going to be one and there is a clamour, t hen i t has t o be prepared and organised. I don’t think that’s for myself or my parliamentary colleagues, but it’s something I think the wider movement has to start considering.”
Relations between the proi n d e p e n d e n c e movement and the BBC have been rocky since the independence referendum in 2014, when seni or Nationalists were critical of the corporation’s coverage of t he campaign and protests were staged by Yes c a mpai g n e r s o u t s i d e t h e BBC’S Glasgow headquarters.
T e n s i o n s a l s o f l a r e d l a s t month when t he BB C announced it was to axe dail y coverage of Nicola Sturgeon’s coronavirus briefings, although that decision was later reversed.
Macaskill has claimed that t he BBC’S i mpartially, l ong the “gold standard” among broadcasters, has been tarnished.
What he described as t he “s h a mel e s s p r o moti o n o f Nigel Farage and the boosting of Brexit” have , he said, long since “taken the shine off supposed impartiality” .
He also claims that a section in the Tory Party “would l i k e t o c l o s e i t d o wn a n d replace it with Fox or some other right- wing channel.