Probably a very dumb question, but why have the EU said there must be a completely open border

[Trewser]

When there are border checks between France and Switzerland? I am fully aware that I'm missing something.

Can anyone tell me why they didn't think of this issue before deciding to hold the referendum in the first place. Surely they knew the GFA would preclude a hard border all along?

What would happen if Ireland joins the Schengen area but doesn't install a border (due to GFA)?
Surely then all the migrants in Europe could cross the border into NI and hence the UK unchecked. What would the UK do?

There would be a hard border in the Irish Sea in less time than it took me to write this post.

Certainly Trewser was genuine enough on private school threads, even if we disagreed lol!

Unscrupulous Me will fill a van with trafficked people in Greece, or Italy or Lithuania- then thanks to the EU Freedom of movement, I can bring them as far as the Republic of Ireland

Many years ago, pre FOM, me an my then partner took a M/C to Southern Italy and back, going through France, Germany, Austria and finally Italy with the intention of not being stopped by border police, we did it easily with a series of michelin maps, these land borders have so many minor roads that are not policed unless intelligence says otherwise.

There would be a hard border in the Irish Sea in less time than it took me to write this post

FTFY
There would be a hard border between NI and the ROI in less time than it took me to write this post

Anything else and they would still be the UK's responsibility.

But i do believe ROI has an agreement to say they will not join Schengen.

Certainly Trewser was genuine enough on private school threads, even if we disagreed lol!

Blame it on the Irish, blame it on the EU

You are so right

But i do believe ROI has an agreement to say they will not join Schengen

ROI wanted to join even before GFA was passed, but it went no further as UK did not want to join. UK reason was that as it is mostly coastline border frontier control was more appropriate.

If both ROI and UK joined Schengen would that help to ease the border problem?

This is an interesting read on Irish border, and why technological solutions are a non-existent answer to the wrong question:

"The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, gets this. When she visited Ireland last April and spent time talking to people who live and work on both sides of the border, she said simply that she understood what they were saying because: “For 34 years I lived behind the iron curtain so I know only too well what it means once borders vanish, once walls fall.” She grasps the truth that what is at stake is not “the exact nature of future customs checks” – it is that customs checks (which the British government pledged never to reinstitute but now proposes to make necessary) are the outward bureaucratic signs of an inner anguish: the rebuilding of spiritual and psychological walls that have been demolished since 1998."

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/08/brexit-irish-border-technology