Brits could be given second referendum on Brexit deal, Boris Johnson's deputy Sir Alan Duncan suggests

Sir Alan said in a speech in Berlin: "It would, I suppose, just be possible to ask the people in a referendum if they liked the exit deal or not."
AFP/Getty Images
Asher McShane7 June 2018
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Boris Johnson's deputy has suggested a second referendum could be held on the UK's final Brexit deal, according to reports.

However Sir Alan Duncan insisted a fresh vote on Britain's membership of the European Union would not happen.

In a speech in Berlin he said it was "possible" that voters could be asked if they liked the terms of the exit package, according to Bloomberg.

Sir Alan later denied the reports in a post on Twitter, saying he made two key points that Britain "will leave the EU and we will not have a second referendum."

"I gave a clear message to #WDREuropaforum in Berlin that we will definitely be leaving the EU but want the best possible economic and security partnership after we have done so," he wrote in an earlier post.

Remainers seized on the comments as proof the "floodgates are now well and truly open" on giving voters a say.

Sir Alan said: "It would, I suppose, just be possible to ask the people in a referendum if they liked the exit deal or not.

"It would not in reality offer people the option of reversing the original decision to leave the EU."

Anti-Brexit campaigners said the exit process had become an "utter shambles" and a fresh vote was needed.

Former Labour frontbencher Chuka Umunna, a supporter of the People's Vote campaign, said: "Alan Duncan is absolutely right to back the idea of a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal.

"As a Foreign Office minister, and deputy to Boris Johnson, he must know as well as anybody what an utter shambles Brexit has become.

"The negotiations are a mess, the Cabinet is in chaos, and Parliament is paralysed by party political game-playing.

"Alan Duncan seems to have finally recognised that the best way out of this quagmire is for the people to decide whether the deal is good enough.

"We wish Alan Duncan the best of luck in persuading his boss Boris Johnson of the necessity for a People's Vote, and he is of course welcome to join the March for a People's Vote on June 23rd."

Labour's Darren Jones, a member of the anti-Brexit Best for Britain group, said: "Alan Duncan has joined the growing tide of MPs who have recognised that the momentous decision to leave the EU on the Government's terms - after months of back-and-forth, uncertainty, and indecision - must be put the people.

"And though Mr Duncan has tried to shut the door on that vote giving people the option to remain, the floodgates are now well and truly open."

A Foreign Office spokesman said that the minister had made clear in his Berlin speech that the idea of a second referendum on EU withdrawal was "a myth".

The spokesman said: "As the minister said several times in today's speech in Berlin, we are leaving the EU and there will be no second referendum."

Additional reporting by PA

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