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"?