As this momentous week comes to an end, what can we now see developing in the distance?

In the United States, is the end of Donald Trump’s presidency now finally coming into view?

In the United Kingdom, is the political demise of its insane Brexit fantasy — and of Boris Johnson — actually taking shape?

And after years of self-inflicted crisis and doubt, has this — finally — been an uplifting and hopeful week in the embattled history of modern democracy?

Bluntly put, the answer to all three questions in my view is an emphatic yes.

This became evident in a week of high political drama that played itself out in stunning fashion in both Washington and London. Incredibly, we saw what happens when democracy’s core institutions — its judiciary, free press and public servants — stand up, roar back and say “enough is enough” to governments that, rather than serving the public interest, wantonly break the law to preserve their own power.

In Washington over the past several days, we saw a series of dramatic developments that may very well lead to the collapse of the Trump presidency — through impeachment, resignation or his re-election defeat in November 2020.

It was triggered in the simplest of ways — by a leak to the Washington Post from an unnamed “whistleblower” who, from his perspective as a U.S. intelligence officer, alleged that Trump pressured the president of Ukraine to get political dirt on a political rival, former vice-president Joe Biden.

The release of the whistleblower’s complaint and the rough transcript of Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Zelenskiy served to confirm the allegation, prompting charges that he not only violated U.S. laws but actually betrayed his country by inviting foreign influences into the 2020 presidential election.

The Democrats, who control the House of Representatives, responded by announcing an impeachment inquiry into Trump’s actions. Even though Republican senators in the Senate would never vote Trump out of office, the enormity of the charge is certain to damage him politically.

I still hold to my prediction two years ago in this column that Trump early next year will conclude he has no chance for re-election and that his biggest fear is being sent to jail once he becomes a private citizen again. Trump’s only way of avoiding that would be to resign and ensure that Vice-President Mike Pence grants him and his family pardons. That is what Richard Nixon did in 1974.

This week in London, Prime Minister Boris Johnson became the target of a political bombshell potentially as damaging as Trump’s.

Britain’s Supreme Court made constitutional history by declaring that Johnson’s suspension of Parliament — to limit debate about Brexit — was illegal. It was a big blow to the prime minister’s efforts to “deliver on Brexit” and get the U.K. out of the European Union by the end of October.

The immediate result, once again, will be chaos and paralysis in the British political process, particularly as it relates to Brexit, but the primacy and power of Parliament has been reaffirmed. And that is certain to be pivotal as parliamentarians attempt to force a second referendum to decide on Brexit.

It was ironic that, during this calamitous week for Trump and Johnson, they were both in New York at the opening of the United Nations General Assembly.

In fact, on what some might view as “the worst day of their political lives,” they actually met on Tuesday, when Johnson heard about the Supreme Court decision and Trump heard about the opening of impeachment hearings in Congress.

If this leads to the collapse of Trump’s presidency, it is striking that an unnamed “whistleblower” will be partially to blame. The New York Times reported Thursday that the man in question is a CIA officer who was assigned at one point to work at the White House.

Not surprisingly, his actions have enraged Trump. Before returning to Washington from New York, he was reported to have told staff at the American UN Mission that this whistleblower was “close to a spy” and that “in the old days,” spies were dealt with differently.

This recalls another whistleblower who has been in the news recently, telling a story perhaps familiar to Trump‘s comrade-in-arms, Johnson.

A film just released, “Official Secrets” starring Keira Knightley, tells the story of Katharine Gun, the British whistleblower who revealed the dishonest reasons being cited by Tony Blair’s U.K. government to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

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Interviewed last week by the Guardian, Gun recounted what she said when she was confronted by British investigators for acting the way she did.

“I work for the British people,” she told them. “I do not gather intelligence so the government can lie to the British people.”

Some truths endure regardless of the context.

Tony Burman , formerly head of CBC News and Al Jazeera English, is a freelance contributing foreign affairs columnist for the Star. He is based in Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @TonyBurman

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