How would Apple possibly fight a valid law of any country it operates in?

So this is interesting. Apple's an incumbent, not some new disruptive company. What I mean to say is this isn't like a rideshare company that goes in burning money to build public sentiment while lobbying the politicians.

Everyone knows who Apple is. I'm certain UK gov has been in constant communication with Apple on how this is to be rolled out. They would have communicated intent and received feedback from Apple as to how they'll ship it. It's within their capability to lobby/advertise opposition to laws like this but logical option in Apple's position is to insist on a common framework countries could use so they don't need to build a different verify for every country.

I really do think Apple's primary opposition to not having E2EE is they didn't want to deal with the cost of complying with requests and the liability of hosting illegal content. That's the real pushback, because it's ongoing cost/liability to them.