EEA Family Permit uncertainties

[schema]

Hi guys i really need your help regarding my situation.
So here is my story: I am a non eea national BC married to BC, we met while I was studying for my degree and got married before the expiry of my UK Visa. we applied for FLR(m) spouse visa in January 2015 and was denied on the basis that my spouse did not bank all of her earnings. So we appealed the decision just to give us more time together and eventually had to withdraw the appeal because i lost my dad .
We then applied for a join EU spouse visa for Ireland which was granted 'thankfully' and we are now together in Ireland. We are considering heading back to the UK using the SS route but there are some uncertainties that we are considering regarding the application. The guidelines for caseworkers as amended Nov 2016 shows that we could be denied on the basis that they think we are circumventing UK immigration rules (previous refused UK visa application) and if our first lawful resident is not in the EU state (in which case ours is in the UK). We are really confused on the next step to take regarding heading back to the UK. We are considering after obtaining my Residence card ,to head back over to the UK after applying for a family permit (hopefully should be granted) after which in the UK we can take the risk and apply for a RC for 5 years or apply for the UK visa using UK rules. As my wife would need to demonstrate that she earns over the income threshold of £18600 for a year, she intends traveling to the UK over the weekend (be self employed and earn over the required threshold) and work part time in Ireland as to continue exercising treaty rights within this period. Please any advice would be very much appreciated.

[noajthan]

...

As my wife would need to demonstrate that she earns over the income threshold of £18600 for a year, she intends traveling to the UK over the weekend (be self employed and earn over the required threshold) and work part time in Ireland as to continue exercising treaty rights within this period. Please any advice would be very much appreciated.

That strategy of split working in UK as well as Eire may be the nail in coffin of your FP application as it violates the UK's somewhat controversial centre of life test for SS-ers.
That would mean your switch back to the UK domestic route really needs to work out this time.
It may be your best bet anyway as, even if back in UK on EU route, there is now unlikely to be time to acquire the holy grail of PR in UK in the normal 5 years.

[noajthan]

To avoid confusion & jumbled responses, I have moved your question to its own thread (this one).

[secret.simon]

As my wife would need to demonstrate that she earns over the income threshold of £18600 for a year,

There is no salary requirement under the EEA Regulations, not even for the Surinder Singh route.

If you were to return under the UK Immigration Rules at some point in the future, there is no guarantee that the salary requirement will be £18,600. Apart from the Miller judgment appeal, we are also awaiting a judgment from the Supreme Court whether the £18600 minimum income requirement is lawful or not. If the government wins that argument, it is not impossible for that threshold to be set higher.

The guidelines for caseworkers as amended Nov 2016 shows that we could be denied on the basis that they think we are circumventing UK immigration rules (previous refused UK visa application) and if our first lawful resident is not in the EU state (in which case ours is in the UK).

It is not merely the guidelines that have changed. The government has changed the EEA Regulations themselves to spell out in words what has been the guidelines in practice.

Of course, currently EU law as interpreted by the CJEU trumps the EEA Regulations, but that will require a test case to go all the way up the legal system to test its legality. Given that that will happen while the Brexit process is in train, one wonders what impact such a test case would have on UK law.