Cheerless love welcoming Republican (5)
I believe the answer is:
drear
'cheerless' is the definition.
('drear' can be similar in meaning to 'cheerless')
'love welcoming republican' is the wordplay.
'love' becomes 'dear' ('dear' can be a synonym of 'love'**).
'welcoming' means one lot of letters goes inside another (in sense of 'inviting in').
'republican' becomes 'r' (abbreviation).
'dear' placed around 'r' is 'DREAR'.
(Other definitions for drear that I've seen before include "miserable" , "Cheerless (literary)" , "Dull, bleak, depressing" , "Poetic dull and uninteresting" , "Grim" .)