When I said these upcomingchanges to subject marriages to EU citizens to the checks was "fairly inevitable" I perhaps did not explain that "fairly". As Nigel correctly says, it was one of the aims to treat EU and non-EU the same, right from the start. The "fairly relates to how it was done: a quiet change of bureaucracy with little notice or public awareness and complete disregard of the fact that real people are affected. It is an example of "act without considering the impact" that I thought fairly inevitable.

There was no need to act immediately. People could have been informed by a public campaign this specific change was coming in, and been given say two years to make.any changes to circumstances they needed. But no, act as if people are not involved at all. That was the "fairly inevitable"