lol. I didn’t bring up Northern Ireland first. And no, that wording isn’t unambiguous at all
I didn't suggest you "brought it up first". You did however make reference to it in your post, hence why I referred to it in turn. I'm unsure why you apparently find this humorous.
Compare that to Scotland: we had a voluntary referendum in 2014 precisely because it appeared likely to the government at the time that a majority might vote for independence
Well this is a palpably ridiculous claim, since at the point when the Edinburgh Act was ratified Independence was polling at around 26%. Of course, the Act itself did not appear overnight and was months in the making, so the 26% figure would likely have been even lower at the point of the Act's conception.
The threshold and subjectivity are actually quite similar
Well evidently not, otherwise NI would be having Border Polls any time it looks likely 26% of the inhabitants would vote for a united Ireland.
The SNP’s “once in a generation” comment was clearly meant to describe a rare, historic opportunity, in fact Salmond himself used the word “rare” to describe it
Indeed, so there is no basis whatsoever to continue to use that statement as an excuse to deny Referenda in perpetuity, which is effectively the current situation given the refusal to even contemplate what might constitute a political generation.
And it’s a bit rich to dismiss the 2014 White Paper as ancient history while treating throwaway lines from Thatcher or random comments from decades ago as some sacred “yardstick.”
No.
Margaret Thatcher was PM at the time, Alexander is the current SoS for Scotland, Ruth Davidson was the Scottish Leader of the party of Westminster Governance throughout her entire time in that role. Neither of the latter pairs' comments were "decades" ago, and these are not people whose statements on Constitutional matters can simply be dismissed as "throwaway" comments given their political status, and especially not when these comments are as close to anything any prominent Unionist politician has come to spelling out the democratic route to Scotland leaving a "voluntary" Union of its own accord. Again, absent of anything further, the only conclusion can be that the UK is in no way, shape, or form a "voluntary" union in any recognised meaning of that term.
And once again, the White Paper was simply a political prospectus that ceased to have any relevance whatsoever in the aftermath of the No vote, so no, the two are not comparable.