‘Richard Sharp has clearly lost the dressing room’: BBC chairman called for resignation by vast majority of respondents in staff poll organized by NUJ

BBC chairman Richard Sharp has been urged by almost all of the more than 1,000 respondents to an employee survey at the company to resign as pressure mounts in the wake of Boris Johnson’s loan scandal.

The poll, conducted by the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), which represents hundreds of BBC journalists, found that 95% believe Sharp should resign immediately. Even more (97%) said revelations about Sharp’s actions and conduct at the time of his appointment and since had damaged the BBC’s reputation, and 91% said the scandal had undermined trust in BBC journalism.

NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet said Sharp had “lost the dressing room”. “Journalists working at the BBC have lost faith in their chairman,” she added. “Revelations about Sharp’s role as financial matchmaker for Boris Johnson and his decision to keep his actions secret have sparked anger and frustration among NUJ members.”

Sharp is currently the subject of two separate inquiries, one by the BBC board and one by Britain’s Public Appointments Commissioner, into allegations that he failed to disclose his arrangement of an £800,000 ($960,000) loan for the former Prime Minister . Sharp put Johnson in touch with his distant cousin Sam Blyth about the loan through Cabinet Secretary Simon Case before he moved out, he says.

Opposition parties and figures such as former BBC heavyweight Jonathan Dimbleby have called on Sharp to resign, and a digital, culture, media and sport committee recently rebuked him in a scathing report for undermining public trust in undermined the BBC. Sharp argued that he “knew nothing” about Johnson’s finances when he helped facilitate the loan and criticized the press for “significant inaccuracies” surrounding the story.

Both studies are expected to report soon.