BOSSES at a flourishing Worcester company have hit out at the EU referendum result - calling the campaign "a pantomime".

Nicola Whiting, who helps run cyber-security firm Titania, says many people who voted Brexit were fed "misinformation".

Mrs Whiting, the company's chief operating officer, has also suggested it could be re-run, something already rejected by the Government after 4.1 million people signed a petition demanding the same thing.

She has also criticised some of the senior politicians who have stepped down from their roles since Brexit, comparing them to amateur acting "Mummers".

Titania's bosses were among several high-profile business leaders around Worcestershire to publicly back Remain ahead of last month's poll.

Mrs Whiting said: "This country runs as a business - just like we do - and if our leadership team decided on a course of action based on misinformation that started to have costly results, we'd revisit that decision.

The British people have a lot more at stake but aren't being given that opportunity.

"If a commercial company lied to that extent they would be held liable - democracy fails when a pantomime is paraded as truth.

"Now the Mummers have left the stage, and the pantomime should be rewritten before it becomes a tragedy."

The online petition calling for a second referendum was the most-signed Government petition since the process was introduced in 2011.

The Foreign Office has now issued a formal reply, saying 33 million people have had their say and "the decision must be respected".

"We must now prepare for the process to exit the EU," it said, adding that outgoing Prime Minister David Cameron has also insisted the same thing.

Government petitions which reach over 100,000 signatures must be 'considered' for debate in parliament.

Ahead of June 23 the bosses at Titania were among 1,280 business leaders to have signed an open letter backing Remain.

The award-winning Barbourne-based firm has customers in over 70 countries.