US tech needs to obey the laws of the country in which it operates. I am sure the demands of UK government are more than reasonable - and, as it is a democracy - as full endorsement of the people / users
The Investigatory Powers Act 2016 was one of the big things (before Brexit) that made me realise the UK wasn't a suitable place to run a tech business.
It hasn't noticeably improved.
"Full endorsement" of the electorate isn't how representative democracy works. Given FPTP, the government got a huge majority of seats with 33.7% of the votes, but as there's not universal voting that's only 14% of the actual population, and even with those who did vote it's not clear how many people were voting "not the other lot".
Also the wider part of this order is that Apple would access to the international users data, including US customers, if I understand the article correctly.
If he's antagonising Trump it's for a reason. Perhaps to avoid showing weakness by being too keen.
I'd probably categorize that more as "declining to halt" rather than "refusing to halt", AFAIK the US government doesn't have an actual law/mandate/whatever for non-governmental organizations on that front.