EU applications for British citizenship

Since the European Union referendum here in the United Kingdom last summer, EU immigrant applications for British citizenship have skyrocketed:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41053684

This is to ensure they are allowed to stay here, assuming the EU-UK negotiations don't protect their right to stay. Ever since the referendum, I have been concerned at what will happen to the 3,000,000 EU immigrants who live here. None of them wanted to be in the situation where they could end up having to leave the UK through no fault of their own; topics like this were barely, if at all, discussed during the referendum campaign.