Jo Johnson, a junior transport minister, said the country was "barreling towards an incoherent Brexit, that is going to leave us trapped in a subordinate relationship to the EU."
Johnson, who campaigned for the UK to remain in the EU, is the younger brother of former UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, a prominent pro-Brexit campaigner, who resigned from May's cabinet in July.
In a statement posted online, Jo Johnson said he said he intended to vote against the withdrawal agreement currently being finalized in London and Brussels because it would represent "a terrible mistake."
The British people are in effect being left with "no choice at all," he said, adding that "what is now being proposed won't be anything like what was promised two years ago."
"To present the nation with a choice between two deeply unattractive outcomes, vassalage and chaos, is a failure of British statecraft on a scale unseen since the Suez crisis," he said.
"Given that the reality of Brexit has turned out to be so far from what was once promised, the democratic thing to do is to give the public the final say."
The resignation will likely come as a blow to May as she seeks to win the backing of her Cabinet in the coming days for the government's proposed deal.
Time is running out for the UK government to negotiate an agreement with Brussels ahead of the UK's scheduled departure from the bloc in March.
May has previously ruled out a second referendum on Britain's exit from the European Union, saying it would be a "gross betrayal" of democracy.
Boris Johnson tweeted his support for his brother's move Friday, saying the pair may not have agreed about Brexit but were "united in dismay at the intellectually and politically indefensible" UK position.
"This is not taking back control. It is a surrender of control," he said. "It does not remotely correspond to the mandate of the people in June 2016."
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