On Monday, Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage launched a savage attack on the BBC, claiming the broadcaster clearly showed anti-Brexit bias on Sunday’s The Andrew Marr Show. Mr Farage condemned the programme’s producers for booking five Remainer guests, with no Brexiteer. On Twitter, he also threatened the bosses of the corporation to make the license fee part of his party’s manifesto.

The former Ukip leader said: “Andrew Marr had 5 Remainers and no Brexit voice on today despite the Brexit Party leading in the polls.

“We haven’t written a manifesto yet, but I have a feeling the BBC licence fee has risen up our agenda.”

It is not the first time Mr Farage and eurosceptics have put forward such claims in recent weeks and, according to newly-resurfaced reports, the issue has actually plagued British politics for decades.

According to a 2005 report by The Times, the BBC’s own inquiry found the broadcaster guilty of pro-EU bias.

The report, written by an independent balanced panel of eurosceptics and europhiles, did not suggest the BBC deliberately tried to bend its coverage in favour of the EU and against eurosceptics.

However, the document said there was substance to the concern that “the BBC suffers from certain forms of cultural and unintentional bias and that despite the good intentions of its producers nobody thinks the outcome is impartial”.

The report, commissioned to find out if complaints by eurosceptics were justified, said BBC News suffered from an “institutional mindset” that led to a “reluctance to question pro-EU assumptions”.

The Times reported eurosceptics, including Conservative politicians, claimed that the report vindicated their longstanding complaint that the BBC was biased against them.

A BBC News spokesman said: “This is a serious piece of work, and we will take it very seriously.”

Timothy Kirkhope, Conservative leader in the European Parliament at the time, told The Times: “Most people who watch the programmes have known this for some time.

“It is a matter of great importance for the British public, and very politically sensitive ahead of the referendum. The BBC has to give an impartial view.

“The question now is how are they going to redress the balance, and how long will it take?”

Minutes of a Ukip’s executive committee meeting from 1994, seen by Express.co.uk, reveal that the party was already concerned about the BBC’s impartiality more than twenty years ago.

The minutes claim that Alan Sked, Ukip’s founder, intended to to write to John Birt, former Director-General of the BBC, to complain about the broadcaster’s lack of coverage of their campaign.

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