Reform, the national magazine of the United Reformed Church (URC) has been renamed after people confused it with the political party Reform UK.

The church said loyal readers had become tired of people assuming it was affiliated to Nigel Farage’s party, with one reader in Surrey saying: “Much as I enjoy reading Reform, I make sure I hide the magazine when visitors come round, for obvious reasons.”

The magazine, which has been in publication for 52 years, will now be called Reformed after a poll of readers found 86% were in favour of a name change.

The URC said the title is intended to “be recognisable as the same magazine, and to reflect the name of the United Reformed Church, while no longer sounding like the name of a political party.”

There had been some advantages to the original name however, as the Church said several people had bought subscriptions to Reform thinking it was a political magazine. The subscriptions were cancelled after they realised it was "some religious thing", as one of them put it.

Editor of Reformed, Stephen Tomkins, said, "We’d talked about changing the name for a few years as Reform UK became more prominent. But at first, we took the view, 'It was our name first!'

"Then readers started telling us the name was causing confusion and consternation in local churches.

"The URC is not attached to any political party and does not want the name of its magazine to suggest that it is. The URC’s General Assembly has taken positions on public issues that are at odds with Reform UK policy, e.g. on migration and asylum, but Reform UK is not the only UK party for whom this is true."