It seems you are suggesting that if a private corporation (a foreign one at that) is large enough it should ignore the law of the country its operating in. I don't think you will like the consequences of such a situation, and will charitably assume you have just not thought your message through for even a second before posting it.
PS: If you think the British gov is authoritarian.. well, you might not know what the term means and/or anything about the spectrum of governments operating today or in the past.
To be more charitable, I think they're more suggesting that Apple should call the UK's bluff, knowing that democracies have to be accountable to their citizens.
Can Apple afford to lose the UK market? Almost certainly yes -- it's a fairly minor global player. Can the current UK government afford to deal with the massive fallout of banning all Apple products right now? That might be, as Sir Humphrey Appleby would say, a very courageous move.
In other words, Apple could simply state that in order to protect their users they cannot and will not do this, and will withdraw from the market rather than comply. That puts the onus on the UK government to either put up or shut up.
It would be fascinating to see how this would play out. Would "think of the children" and "OMG, terrorists!!" win against, "but I still want my iProducts"?
If laws aren't transparent and reasonable, you shouldn't necessarily follow them. If I were to sell encryption software that's banned in Kazakhstan, you wouldn't expect me to stop selling to customers there, would you? I see no reason why the United Kingdom should be treated any differently than Kazakhstan in this case.
The British government is certainly not as authoritarian as those in China or Russia, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s still terrible and restricts people’s rights. For example, you can be detained for as long as they want if you refuse to unlock your encrypted device.
You may be confused, so I'll try to illustrate the situation.
Supose you live in USA, your chickens have a list of laws, those laws apply to USA. If you try to sell those chickens in UK or Europe you'll find that your company will not be allowed to operate, and if you continue someone will go to jail.
Maybe digital products have an easy way out, but apple is not digital and they may need to find a way to comply.