"The key point about modern borders is that beyond demarking and establishing the legal jurisdiction and geographic extent of a country, they have a number of revenue, immigration and safety functions. Crucially, each of these functions can occur at the place where validity needs to be checked and this does not have to occur at a particular point where the goods or people cross a line on a map. This allows a country to create “smart borders” to check this validity in the most appropriate, cost-effective and convenient real or virtual space.
The very notion of a “hard border” where everything and everyone is stopped and searched is a ridiculous and almost cartoonish fiction, not resembling reality in any other European nation."