Is there any polling to show public support currently for leaving the EU on WTO terms? There are plenty of Leavers who will tell you that No Deal was what they intended all along. But I don't remember anyone giving this option serious credence back in 2016.
That's because back then the leaders of the Leave campaign lied that No Deal wasn't an option to reassure people that that wasn't what they voted for and continued to do so even after the Referendum.
In April 2016, Vote Leave issued a press release, criticising an OECD report on the potential impact of Brexit that contained the "flawed assumption" that the UK might not do a free trade deal with the EU after Brexit: "The OECD states that: ‘trade with the EU and other countries would initially revert to a WTO MFN-basis’. This is a highly flawed assumption that not even the IN campaign seriously contemplates as a realistic possibility. Leading pro-EU campaigners have admitted the UK will strike a free trade agreement if we Vote Leave."
Two days before the referendum Gove told the BBC
"No-one is seriously arguing that Britain would be outside that free trade area, that tariff barriers would be erected and that Britain's manufacturing goods would be at a disadvantage."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49165836In July 2017 Johnson blustered to the House Of Commons that "There is no plan for No Deal because we're going to get a great deal"
https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/efe22c03-c1cb-4f78-8351-1efdb7d0aa22?in=11:51:08Around the same time Liam Fox boasted that "The free trade agreement that we will have to do with the European Union should be one of the easiest in human history."
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/20/liam-fox-uk-eu-trade-deal-after-brexit-easiest-human-historyIn March 2019 Gove said "We didn’t vote to leave without a deal. That wasn’t the message of the campaign I helped lead. Leaving without a deal on March 29 would not honour that commitment. It would undoubtedly cause economic turbulence. Almost everyone in this debate accepts that."
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6793255/MICHAEL-GOVE-backing-Prime-Ministers-deal-EU-ensure-Brexit-happens.html
In June 2019, Johnson blathered his infamous "million to one" quote (about the odds of leaving without a deal)
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-leader/boris-johnson-says-chances-of-no-deal-brexit-are-a-million-to-one-idUKKCN1TR1IXIn September 2019 Johnson said (correctly for once) that leaving the EU without a deal "would be a failure of statecraft for which we would all be responsible"
https://www.itv.com/news/2019-09-09/leo-varadkar-boris-johnson-frosty-press-conferenceAnd here we are. Staring down the abyss of Johson's "failure of statecraft"
FWIW, I think they will pull off a last minute, paper-thin, may-as-well-not-bother deal. I think the theatrics this week have been a show to
1) Scare the shit out of Tory MPs who might have balked at the details of the shit deal he will get, from both wings, the "Christ is that it?" wing and the "Surrendering are sovrinty" wing
2) Be able to present a miserable paper thin shit deal as a "victory" that Johnson pulled out of the hat at the last minute by his personal intervention.
An abject national humiliation dressed up as a dramatic "victory". Kuensberg, Peston, The Mail, Telegraph, the Express and their readers will lap it up.
