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Foreign minister Alan Duncan and the Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson
- UK Foreign Office Minister Alan Duncan says a second referendum on the terms of May's Brexit deal is now "possible."
- However, he says the vote "isn't going to happen" and wouldn't reverse the 2016 referendum result.
- Duncan's comments are the first time a senior government figure has left open the possibility of a second vote.
- It comes at the end of a difficult day for Theresa May in which her Brexit Secretary David Davis threatened to resign.
LONDON - A second Brexit referendum on the terms of Theresa May's Brexit deal is now "possible," a senior member of her government said on Thursday.
Speaking in Berlin, UK foreign office minister Alan Duncan said that a public vote on May's deal could now take place.
"It would, I suppose, just be possible to ask the people in a referendum if they liked the exit deal or not," Duncan said.
However, he insisted that such a vote was "not going to happen" and in any case "would not, in reality, offer people the option of reversing the original decision to leave the EU."
Duncan's comments are the first time a senior member of May's government has left open the possibility of holding another Brexit referendum.
They come after the prime minister mocked the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn at this week's prime minister's questions for refusing to rule out holding such a vote.
Labour does not have a policy of supporting - or calling for - a second referendum, but Corbyn and other senior figures have yet to explicitly rule one out.
The comments also come at the end of a difficult day for Theresa May after her Brexit Secretary David Davis threatened to resign over plans for an unlimited Brexit "backstop" which could leave Britain following EU customs rules for years after Brexit.
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