The BBC no longer has a duty to provide balanced coverage of Brexit, according to Nick Robinson, presenter of the Today programme.

Those who accuse the corporation of bias “find it hard to accept that on the BBC they will often hear people they disagree with saying things they don’t like”, Robinson said.

That group includes more than 70 MPs who wrote to Lord Hall, the BBC director-general, complaining about the “pessimistic” tone of Brexit coverage.

Lord Hall replied to the MPs insisting that “we go to great lengths to ensure that we balance our coverage and address all issues from a wide range of perspectives”.

However, writing a column in Radio Times - which begins: “Welcome to another week of moaning about the BBC” - Robinson said he was tired of Leavers and Remainers monitoring the corporation’s output with “stopwatches and calculators”.

“Enough! Leave it out. Remain calm,” he said. “The referendum is over. The duty we broadcasters had to ‘broadly balance’ the views of the two sides is at an end. Why? Because there are no longer two sides, two campaigns, two rival sets of spokespeople reading out those focus-grouped slogans.